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impracticaljokerssub · 6 years ago

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ADVERTENCIA El siguiente programa contiene escenas de estupidez gráfica entre cuatro amigos que compiten para avergonzarse entre sí.

Qué tal a todos y bienvenidos!

Aquí iré subiendo capítulos de Impractical Jokers subtitulados al español a medida que vayan emitiéndolos por TruTV Latinoamérica. Y mientras me sea posible, claro. El subtitulado proviene de ellos y yo me ocupo de capturarlo del canal de cable. Para los usuarios de celulares, es recomendable usar un navegador web para la correcta visualización de la página en lugar de la aplicación.

Subir todo esto costó bastante trabajo y tomó mucho de mi tiempo así que me hice una cuenta en Cafecito.app para que, si lo sienten, puedan contribuir con unos pesos, lo que me ayudaría un montón y me alienta a seguir subiendo contenido de estos cuatro bromistas que tanto queremos. De nuevo, si lo sienten y quieren, todo monto es más que bienvenido :)

https://cafecito.app/impracticalespanol

Muchas gracias y que lo disfruten!

- Fran, admin

(Actualizado: 22/12/2020)

Capítulos disponibles:

TEMPORADA 1

1x01 - Pay It Forward 1x02 - Butterfly Crime Scene 1x03 - Unmotivational Speaker 1x04 - Boardwalk of Shame 1x05 - Drawing a Blank 1x06 - Panty Raid 1x07 - Out of TP 1x08 - Who Arted 1x09 - A Loser Presents 1x10 - What Did I Eat? 1x11 - Starfart Macchiato 1x12 - Bellydancer 1x13 - Charity Case 1x14 - Theater del Absurdo 1x15 - Pick a Loser 1x16 - Supercuts

TEMPORADA 2

2x01 - The Stoop Sessions Part 1 2x02 - The Stoop Sessions Part 2 2x03 - Elephant in the Room 2x04 - Art Attack 2x05 - Strip High Five 2x06 - Birds and the Bees 2x07 - Sound EffeXXX 2x09 - Psychotic Not-Line 2x10 - The Truth Hurts 2x11 - Get Out of Dodge 2x12 - The Love Expert 2x13 - Out of Fashion 2x14 - Scaredy Cat 2x15 - Joker vs. Joker

TEMPORADA 3

3x01 - Look Out Below 3x02 - The Great Escape 3x03 - Field of Screams 3x04 - Nationals Disaster 3x05 - Bonus Footage 3x06 - Toasted 3x07 - Scarytales 3x08 - Inside the Vault 3x09 - Bigger in Texas 3x10 - Snow Way Out 3x11 - Takes the Cake 3x12 - Anniversary Edition 3x13 - Jokers Playhouse 3x14 - Make Womb for Daddy 3x15 - Puncture Perfect 3x16 - Junk in the Trunk 3x17 - The Good, the Bad, and the Uncomfortable 3x18 - Baggage Shame 3x19 - Quantum Mock-anics 3x20 - Clash of the Jokers 3x21 - Tooth & Consequences 3x22 - Fe-Mail 3x23 - The Lost Boy 3x24 - Up Loser’s Creek 3x25 - In Poor Taste Buds 3x26 - The Permanent Punishment 3x27 - Parks and Wreck 3x28 - A Legendary Fail 3x29 - B-I-N-G-NO 3x30 - Just Say No 3x31 - Brother-in-Loss

TEMPORADA 4

4x01 - Welcome to Miami 4x02 - Below the Belt 4x03 - Uncool and the Gang 4x04 - Wrong Playwright 4x05 - Elevating The Game 4x06 - The Blunder Years 4x07 - Deal With The Devils 4x08 - Damned If You Do 4x09 - The Dream Crusher 4x10 - Joke & Dagger 4x11 - Pseudo-Sumo 4x12 - Car Sick 4x13 - Cruisin' For A Bruisin' 4x14 - Bathroom Break 4x16 - Captain Fatbelly 4x17 - Sneaking Number Twos, Going Number One 4x18 - Blind Justice 4x19 - Tied and Feathered 4x20 - Smushed 4x21 - Live Punishment Special 4x22 - The Big Uneasy 4x23 - Hopeless and Changeless 4x24 - Stripped of Dignity 4x25 - The Taunted House 4x26 - Doomed

TEMPORADA 5

5x01 - HellCopter 5x02 - You're Cut Off 5x03 - Ruffled Feathers 5x04 - Stare Master 5x05 - Bidder Loser 5x06 - The Good, The Bad, and the Punished 5x07 - Putting the P in Pool 5x08 - Statue of Limitations 5x09 - Brother of the Sisterhood 5x10 - Dark Side of the Moon 5x11 - Whose Phone Is Ringing? 5x12 - Centaur of Attention 5x13 - Browbeaten 5x14 - The Coward 5x15 - Virtual Insanity 5x16 - Laundry Day 5x18 - Hitting the Wrong Note 5x19 - Heckle and Hide 5x22 - Ash Clown 5x23 - Spider Man 5x24 - Stage Fright 5x25 - Training Day 5x26 - Nitro Circus Spectacular

TEMPORADA 6

6x01 - Swim Shady 6x02 - Lady and the Tramp 6x03 - The Parent Trap 6x04 - Catastrophe 6x05 - Vampire Weakened 6x06 - Footloose 6x07 - X-Man 6x08 - Medium, Well Done 6x09 - Drum and Drummer 6x11 - Stuffed Turkey 6x12 - Crickets 6x13 - Universal Appeal 6x14 - Paradise Lost 6x15 - Mime and Punishment 6x16 - Three Men and Your Baby 6x17 - The Q-Pay 6x18 - Rubbed the Wrong Way 6x19 - Flatfoot the Pirate 6x20 - Remember the Pact 6x21 - Silence of the Lame 6x22 - The Walking Dread 6x23 - Take Me Out at The Ball Game 6x24 - The Party Crasher

TEMPORADA 7

7x01 - The Marathon Man 7x02 - Guilty as Charged 7x03 - No Good Deed 7x04 - Stripteased 7x05 - Indecent Proposal 7x06 - Turning the Tables 7x07 - Lords of the Ring 7x08 - No Child Left Behind 7x09 - Pulling the Rug 7x10 - Speech Impediment 7x11 - Card Against Humanity 7x12 - Bull Shiatsu 7x13 - The Running Of The Bullies 7x14 - The Needy and the Greedy 7x15 - Washed Up 7x16 - To Hatch A Predator 7x17 - Like A Boss 7x18 - Chick Magnet 7x19 - Dropping Knowledge 7x20 - Hump Day 7x21 - Out of Left Field 7x22 - Autograph Corrector 7x23 - The Bogey Man 7x24 - Hell On Wheels 7x26 - Staten Island Holiday Spectacular

TEMPORADA 8

8x01 - Crash Test Dummies 8x02 - The Closer 8x03 - Tipping Point 8x04 - Full Mental Jacket 8x05 - Blue Man Dupe 8x06 - The Dumbbell 8x07 - The Eggman 8x08 - Cake Loss 8x09 - The Antisocial Network 8x10 - Off the Reservation 8x11 - Fraudway 8x12 - The Show Stopper 8x13 - Sucks for You 8x14 - Well... 8x15 - The Prize Fighter 8x16 - Sun-Fan Lotion 8x17 - Urine Trouble 8x18 - Irritable Vowel Syndrome 8x19 - Bad Carma 8x20 - Fast Feud

ESPECIALES

British Invasion A Day in the Life (Making of) Unseen Scenes All Aboard! One Night Stand Up Joker for a Day - Part 2 The Murray Jury Sizing Up Sal Judging Joe Critiquing Q Humiliation for the Holidays Fan-tastic Countdown Punishment Countdown March Madness Showdown March Madness Bracket Attack

EN ESPAÑOL LATINO

2x11 - Get Out of Dodge 2x12 - The Love Expert 2x13 - Out of Fashion 3x08 - Inside the Vault 3x17 - The Good, the Bad, and the Uncomfortable 5x16 - Laundry Day 5x17 - Water Torture 5x18 - Hitting the Wrong Note 5x19 - Heckle and Hide 5x20 - The Chairman 5x21 - Wrapper's Delight 5x22 - Ash Clown 5x23 - Spider Man 5x24 - Stage Fright 5x25 - Training Day

AFTER PARTY

1x01 - The Q-Pay (6x17) 1x02 - Rubbed the Wrong Way (6x18) 1x03 - Flatfoot the Pirate (6x19) 1x04 - Remember the Pact (6x20) 1x05 - Silence of the Lame (6x21) 1x06 - The Walking Dread (6x22) 1x07 - Take Me Out at The Ball Game (6x23) 1x08 - The Party Crasher (6x24) 1x09 - Dover and Out (6x25) 3x01 - Crash Test Dummies (8x01) 3x02 - The Closer (8x02) 3x03 - Tipping Point (8x03) 3x04 - Off the Reservation (8x10) 3x05 - Fraudway (8x11)

Puedes ver Impractical Jokers por TruTV Latinoamérica todos los días a las 06.00, 14.00 y 22.00 hs.

#impracticaljokers #subtitulado #español

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qqueenofhades · 7 years ago

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The Punisher as Medieval Romance: Tropes, Themes, and Characters

So a few days ago, an anon asked about more mythologies/inspirations for Kastle, apart from Hades/Persephone, and I mentioned that Frank’s character and his overall story arc have substantial (and fascinating) parallels with medieval romances. I was just answering quickly, but I then started to think about it in more depth, and realized that in fact, damn near all of The Punisher can be read as a modern-day medieval romance, sometimes subverting long-established tropes and sometimes playing them almost straight. This extends into Daredevil canon as well, as the characters around Frank also fit into recognizable mythic-medieval roles, and… yes. I resisted writing a long and research-heavy meta, clearly what I needed to do on the last week of term, for oh, forty-eight hours. Then, well, we know how that goes.

A note that I work specifically on medieval history, rather than medieval literature, so if I say anything clangingly bad, I hope my brethren and sistren medievalists can forgive me for it. Also, I don’t know if any of this is intentional on the part of the writers, so it’s not like I am identifying anything they’re specifically doing (or if they are, I don’t know about it), but this is just me, as a nerd, wandering into the candy store and being like “OH HEY GUYS LOOK AT THIS.” Of course, not all the examples fit in every aspect between medieval romance and modern Marvel canon, but there are still enough of them in a number of ways to make this interpretation plausible. And indeed, considering how Marvel stories have become ubiquitously embedded in our popular lexicon almost exactly in the way Arthurian legends and stories did for their medieval equivalent, it’s a noteworthy comparison.

(As you may be able to guess, this will be long.)

Let’s start with the source material. The medieval Arthurian romances are part of what is known as the Matter of Britain: the vast corpus of texts, written and rewritten across several centuries and by countless authors (usually French or English) that deals with some aspect of this mythology. Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin, the Knights of the Round Table, and other characters appear in various guises and playing different roles in each of these texts. They are still “themselves” on each appearance, but the interpretation and the storyline is largely up to each individual author. One may remark that this bears some similarities with the Marvel comic universe. The characters have been written and re-written in a vast array of formats from their first creation to their present modern iteration (and likewise, Hollywood is still making a King Arthur movie every other year). They have been interpreted by many authors and given different plots and re-imaginings, and are part of our collective pop-culture reference in the way that Arthurian romance and chivalric literature was in the medieval era. If Twitter had existed back then, we would have fans begging for Arthur Pendragon to be saved from Camlann the way we now have fans begging NASA to save Tony Stark. It’s a kind of cultural entertainment that you’re probably at least aware of, even if you’ve never participated in, and thus has reached similar levels of saturation. The Arthurian romances inspired endless knock-offs. We likewise have an omnipresent superhero genre. It reinvents and redefines the hero’s journey for its particular day and age on a massive scale. In some sense, we don’t even need to explain these characters or tropes, because everyone already knows who and what they are.

So… onto Frank. At first glance, he is a considerably unlikely medieval romantic hero, right? He’s rough around the edges, has (to say the least) grey morality, and is generally regarded as an outcast and a loner in his community, rather than some idealized, flawless Sir Galahad type who has never done anything wrong in his life and nobly avoids all temptation. But he’s actually a hero in the middle of his trials and tribulations and the corresponding loss (and eventual reaffirmation) of heroic identity. The broad strokes of Frank’s character arc, as seen in Daredevil season 2 and Punisher season 1, are these:

Separation from home and family;

Exile from society and the implied loss of chivalric (military) virtue;

Test of honor/contests against other knights, good and bad (Matt Murdock, Wilson Fisk, Lewis Wilson, etc);

Search for the Grail (life, restoration to honor, vengeance for his family, completion of the chivalric quest);

Partnership with worthy knights on the search (David Lieberman, Curtis Hoyle);

Resisting temptation from a knight’s wife (Sarah Lieberman);

Saving a fair maiden and having to be worthy of her love, while bound by a code of secrecy (Karen Page);

Confrontation of betrayal by an intimate/revelation of the dark side of chivalric honor (Billy Russo);

Menaced by a quasi-mythical and possibly demonic figure who must be defeated, who fights him in a parallel battle at the beginning/end of the story (Agent Orange/Rawlins);

Attempt to re-enter society and re-establish identity (end of s1, though that will be once more disrupted and complicated by s2);

All of this is, basically, the overall character arc for a medieval hero. Pretty much beat by beat. Also, while we’ve gotten used to think of ‘chivalry’ as implying a certain kind of idealized and virtuous behavior around ladies (holding doors, gentlemanly actions, whatever) that was only a small part of the overall code of chivalry – which, at its core, was an ethos about fighting, military prowess, and the display of valor through acts of war. Frank says that he loves being a soldier, and this would be a sentiment familiar to a medieval knight. Chrétien de Troyes has a line about how, essentially, only morally suspect half-men prefer peace. The soldier’s proper right, duty, and true joy in life is the practice of war, and he earns chivalry – martial renown – by doing it. It is not merely a pretty or romantic veneer on courtly behavior (though that is often how it is presented), but about war, the military, the destruction of opponents, and the very nature of being a constant soldier. To say the least, this fits Frank’s character extremely well. He is the consummate soldier who in fact needs a constant war to fight, and who has built an honorable legacy for himself (decorated Marine, Navy Cross, etc) prior to his forcible separation from society. This darker, grittier underside of chivalry, when the violence, bloodshed, and distortion of self was a constant concern, also fits very well with the tone of The Punisher.

That separation is often the keystone for a medieval hero’s journey, and functions to drive him out from the context in which he has until now been respected and earned his living. Sometimes we have an outright reason for that action, sometimes the hero just leaves Camelot and sets out on a quest, but Frank’s separation from society bears some similarity to Bisclavret, a twelfth-century werewolf romance written by a woman (Marie de France), and interesting for various reasons. (Some literature is available via Google Books.) In this case, the hero (the eponymous Bisclavret) is driven from society by the treachery of his wife, who hides his clothes so he can’t turn back from a wolf into a human and is forced to spend seven years in the forest as a beast. Of course Frank loses his wife, rather than being betrayed by her, but there’s still the connection between loss of wife – loss of home – loss of self, resulting in exile to the margins of society and transformation into a “monster.” Bisclavret never gives up his principles and identity even while forced to remain a wolf, and Frank gains a reputation as the “Punisher,” but likewise adheres to his own code of honor. He remains a knight, even if a knight-errant.

Bisclavret is rescued and brought back from the woods by an unnamed king, who sees his humanity and treats him well even as a monster (and yes, there are some definite homoerotic undertones in the fact that it’s the king’s love that restores him to himself, after his wife rejects him for his monsterhood or arguably, queerness). However, you could credibly parallel this to Frank and David Lieberman, who believes that he can help Frank and they can restore him to his former self/his good name. David of course physically helps Curtis care for Frank after his injuries in TP 1x05, and in general performs the humanizing role for the “monster.” He serves as Frank’s companion in the wilderness and believes that he is not the way the rest of society sees him (just as everyone else in Bisclavret sees him as a werewolf and has to be convinced by his good behavior that he’s really a man). Likewise, Karen recognizes early in Daredevil season 2, and never gives up in believing, that Frank still has honor. He’s (literally) not a monster to her. He has been expelled from the chivalric society in which he operated before, but he has not completely abandoned his morality.

Next, as noted, the motif of contests against other knights is essentially a central theme in all quest narratives. Frank must match his wits and skills against challengers, and be paralleled and anti-paralleled to them. One of his most obvious foils is against Matt, as they are explicitly set up as reflections and reverse images of each other. In some sense, Matt is the perfect chivalric knight, at least in DD s1/s2. His morality tends to the black and white, he always has some sense of how his faith informs or restricts his actions, and he constantly incorporates the church’s teaching into his sense of self. As Richard Kaeuper discusses in Holy Warriors: The Religious Ideology of Chivalry, this is basically exactly what the medieval church would want for a knight. Some degree of coexistence (sometimes a great deal) exists between chivalry and Christianity, but the underlying question of violence and sin always underlies it – can a man who makes his living by killing people really claim to be acting in a holy cause? Matt avoids this paradox (or tries to) by not killing anyone, but Frank almost exactly embodies the tension between these two ideologies that was ever-present in the medieval era. Clerical moralists always worried that knights were too comfortable with killing, violence, and general unethical behavior (even as they needed and co-opted that violence for their own purposes, such as the preaching and popularization of the crusades). For their part, the knights often selectively used the parts of Christianity that they liked, and fashioned it into their own ethos, just like Frank does to justify his campaign of vengeance.

In other words, Matt and Frank are perfect symbols of the struggle between church and chivalry, with Matt embodying one side (reconciliation) and Frank embodying the other (estrangement), but neither of them are completely excluded from knighthood despite their differences. They’re in fact the central tension of its existence – how violent can a knight be, and how much consideration, superficial or otherwise, does he have to pay to the church’s restriction of his ethics and behavior? There is some argument that chivalric literature was written as an attempted correction or moral instruction for real-life knights, who were supposed to take it as guidance on their own behavior and be more merciful. This isn’t always the case, since as noted, the literature exalts the very kind of violent behavior that built a chivalric reputation, but there was always that inherent wariness about how much was too much. Matt and Frank push and pull each other on this very question, end up working together at points because they are both within the system, but can’t fully reconcile.

(Also I’d like to point out: Stick, Matt, and Elektra as Merlin, Arthur, and Morgana. Stick is the mysterious, possibly immortal mentor, who teaches and mentors both of them, but also misleads and manipulates them for his own purposes. Matt becomes the ‘hero,’ son of the dead/fallen king (Uther Pendragon/Battlin’ Jack Murdock), while Elektra becomes the villainess/feared sorceress, marginalized by a society frightened of her agency and unwillingness to play nice. Also, one of Arthur’s two half-sisters, usually Morgause but sometimes Morgana, is the mother of his illegitimate son, Mordred, who is prophesied to be his destruction. So there is a dark/forbidden/taboo sexual aspect to their relationship, and just as Mordred causes the ultimate fall of Camelot, Matt and Elektra are literally caught in a falling building at the end of Defenders, which destroys their current identities. Matt enters Once and Future King stage after that and at the beginning of DDS3, where he is ‘gone’ or sleeping or suffering a crisis of faith and must summon up the wherewithal to return, and the character of Benjamin Poindexter becomes one of the many Arthur imposters. There are also some parallels for Elektra with Nimue, the ambitious young student of Merlin’s who overthrows him, ends his reign, and imprisons him in a tree.)

Anyway, back to Frank. So what are knights actually doing with all this questing? Well, various things, but they’re most often searching for the Holy Grail: symbolic of eternal life, forgiveness and atonement of sins, return to self. For this reason, few of them actually find it or are able to encounter it without being changed. It too has a deeply underlying Christian context, and Frank, the ex-Catholic, has been estranged from his belief but not separated entirely. (Likewise, if you were not worthy to look on it, you could be blinded, so… the fact that Matt himself is blind is arguably a commentary on who he actually is vs. how he imagines himself.) The Grail is also, interestingly, in the custody of a figure known as the Fisher King. He is the keeper of the castle where the Grail is hidden, and in the context of the Punisher, he’s basically Curtis.

The Fisher King, for a start, is always wounded in the legs or the thigh, and unable to stand. Some scholars have interpreted this as a metaphor for castration (since “thigh” is often a euphemism for the genitals), and that the Fisher King is passive and impotent because he is physically unable to perform warfare and thus to acquire chivalry. Either way, the Fisher King is the keeper of eternal life, but is physically disabled and needs the help of a knight to activate that power. Curtis is to some degree a subversion of this trope, because he is explicitly not helpless and functions to enable other questing knights (veterans with PTSD) to search for the Grail (health and reconciliation to society)… but in TP 1x09, he still needs Frank to save him. Frank has to encounter the Fisher King and make the correct choice/ask the right question (which wire to cut) to save him and continue his own path toward the Grail. Curtis, by running the veterans’ group, is symbolically the keeper of eternal life, where questers have to literally ask questions/talk to each other to restore themselves, and Frank, by going at the end of s1, is still trying to reach it. But true to form, with the beginning of s2, he’s not going to be able to entirely get there. There is still another obstacle/quest to overcome.

So what about Karen? Visually and to some degree topically, she is set up as the lady whose love Frank needs to obtain and maintain, even in the wilderness of his exile. Karen is blonde-haired and blue-eyed, which was often viewed in the medieval era as the ideal/most beautiful kind of woman (because white supremacy in Europe has always existed to some degree, even if in differently constructed ways. However, the thirteenth-century Dutch romance Morien, and some other ones, feature black and mixed-race protagonists, who are just as able to achieve the predicates of the heroic quest as others). She is also, as discussed above, one of the only people to believe in Frank’s honor and to reach out to help him. However, this relationship has to be kept secret, and has the potential to destroy them both if revealed. This is a fairly close parallel to another of Marie de France’s romances: Lanval (adopted in fourteenth-century English form, by Thomas Chestre, as Sir Launfal).

In brief, Sir Lanval, after being cast out from Camelot, meets a fairy woman and they become lovers, and she promises him that he will have everything he needs, as long as he keeps her secret and never mentions her to anyone. (Marie’s original version of this is much less misogynist than Chestre’s, which adds Guinevere making sexual advances to Launfal and her jealousy being the cause of him being thrown out, so yes, Dudes Ruining Stuff has a long history.) This is not an exact analogue to Frank and Karen, but keeping the code of secrecy (Karen obviously can’t tell anyone about Frank, Frank receives what he needs from her in terms of information, emotional support, etc, but likewise can’t tell anyone about it) is paramount in both relationships. Speaking about the relationship or revealing it to the outside world will result in its destruction, and the fairy lady has to vouch for Lanval’s goodness to the court in Camelot, just as Karen stoutly defends Frank to the court of public opinion/literally everyone. In some sense, while the knight has to rescue the fair maiden, the fair maiden is also the arbitrator of his fate and his overall reputation. (Also, all of TP 1x10 is basically Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, in which Lancelot must rescue the abducted Guinevere from Meleagant, and having to struggle with the revelation of this relationship and the fact they can’t be together and the dictates of public/proper behavior. Anyway.)

Lastly, Frank’s initial and final conflicts, and the overall shape of his quest, are dictated by his encounters with two archvillains: Billy Russo and William Rawlins, or “Agent Orange.” These are made especially painful for him by the fact that they are or were both close to him. Billy was his best friend, essentially part of his family, and as noted, there is a major theme in chivalric literature revolving around a betrayal (and subsequent murder) by those closest to you. We already discussed King Arthur being overthrown and killed by his incestuous illegitimate son, Mordred; the best-known version of that tale is of course Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, though only the seventh book, as linked above, actually tells the story of Arthur’s death. There is also Arthur’s half-sister and Mordred’s usual mother Queen Morgause; in the Morte, she is killed by her son Gaheris for committing adultery with Sir Lamorak and dishonoring her husband, King Lot. So in one sense, the knight is always doomed to face a betrayal from within his family, or from a close friend.

However, Billy Russo is also straight-up one of the demon knights of Perlesvaus, or, The High History of the Holy Grail. In Perlesvaus, Lancelot is haunted by the specter of these demon knights, who engage in a dark mockery of chivalric behavior, excesses of violence, and satanic imagery, and are otherwise the “dark side of the force” of honorable knighthood, as Richard Kaeuper puts it in Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe. Honor and chivalry are not permanent or unchangeable qualities, and in fact are very fragile. The perfect knight can and should have both of these, but he can also lose them very quickly by impious, dishonorable, murderous, or otherwise wrong actions. The demon knights are a metaphor and a commentary on the same tension we discussed in regard to Frank and Matt: when does a knight-errant become a bad knight? When does his behavior permanently transgress him and cast him beyond the reach of repentance? Billy outwardly embodies the same qualities as Frank, has been through the same wars, is part of the same order, but he isn’t a hero on a quest whose chivalric identity can eventually be reconciled to him. He has crossed too far to the wrong side of the line; now he is the embodiment of evil, a shadow parallel and a cautionary tale. He is not a knight-errant, he is merely a monster.

Then, of course, there’s Rawlins/Agent Orange. Noting the fact that his nickname is also color-coded, we can see some parallels to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In short, in this tale, a mysterious “Green Knight” challenges any man to strike him, with the condition that he will get to return the blow in a year and a day. Sir Gawain accepts and beheads him, after which the Green Knight stands up, picks up his head, and remains Gawain of his promise. Gawain has to struggle to both honorably keep his bargain and avoid dying, and is eventually struck at in return by the Green Knight, wounded, but not killed. In some interpretations, this has just been a test all along for Gawain to prove his honor, or an attempt by Morgana to deceive him and cause him to betray his chivalric ideals, and the Green Knight is just a pawn to achieve this. In others, the Green Knight is a potential embodiment of the Devil. (He also has a dual identity, as the Green Knight/Sir Bertilak, as Rawlins does.) Frank strikes at/beheads/blinds Rawlins, as seen in the flashbacks of TP 1x03, so Rawlins literally wants to do the same to him (an eye for an eye) in TP 1x12. In the story, Gawain and the Green Knight part on cordial terms, but in this case, Frank has to actually complete the death/destruction of his opponent. Like Gawain, however, he is wounded but not killed, and must find some way to survive his encounter with a possibly demonic entity determined to pay back in exact measure the physical wound/symbolic beheading inflicted earlier.

So. . . yes. Overall, both in the broad parameters of his character arc, in the obstacles he confronts, and the other people he meets and the encounters he plays out with them, Frank is actually an excellent hero for a modern-medieval romance. The essential core of the medieval romance was not about love, though that was often present, but about identity, adventure, and the challenge to self, and while in some places these tropes have been updated or nuanced or subverted, in others they’re played as recognizably or directly descended from their medieval counterparts, and the way in which we have thought about stories and enjoyed them for a very long time.

#mcu #the punisher #the punisher meta #frank castle #kastle #frank x matt #medieval history #medieval literature #yes of course i ended up writing this #i am nothing if not predictable #long post

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