I know TV mechanics very well so I'm approaching from that angle. There have been several canon TV endgames that are obligatory and almost all of them are when a lead is paired with a recurring or supporting. Just practically, the show has to work harder when screen time is lop-sided. The relationship is given lip service in these situations without the onscreeen development. Established relationships actually makes it easier for a plotty show to do this because they can say that they're married and reconciled and move on to the plot.
If Celeborn gets upgraded to a lead character in the later seasons, what I said doesn't apply. But if Tolkien didn't do it and Peter Jackson didn't do it (deciding even to focus on Galadriel/Gandalf when he got the chance) I don't see TROP, having chosen Galadriel and Sauron as the pin on which the show resides, being the outlier to the precedent already set.
I think he gets good characterization in his introduction to the series. We have to know who he is. But again, he's recurring IIRC with many other people fighting for screentime in an 8 episode show.
Then there's how Amazon will handle pandering to two sections of the fanbase: the LOTR fanboys and shippers.
The most popular ship that's gotten them positive publicity is between two leads and it involves Celeborn's wife. Amazon backed off from their initial plausible denials of a romance once they saw that the relationship was a hit in the trades/mags and on social media.
My guess? They'll play both sides to appease everyone.
"It's a cosmic connection and they'll get the scenes about their relationship and most importantly narrative significance. But no one can get mad because it's not a romance."
"We've told you Galadriel is married and reunited so don't get mad if scenes devoted to her relationship aren't center stage; this show isnt about romance".
It'll be show vs tell and many TV writers do this especially for queerbaiting ships because those ships rely entirely on subtext. Those ships would be the emotional crux of their shows while the characters have husbands or wives.
The way they've handled Celeborn already is a big indication to me. Introducing Celeborn a season after is a deliberate handicap the writers gave the character. He should've been mentioned from the moment Finrod's death was and he wasn't. 'My husband is presumed dead' doesn't come up in narration. Elrond never mentions it. It's only Finrod that explicitly drives Galadriel within her arc. For the viewer, he's handicapped from the start. I'd love to pick TROP showrunners' brain about why they ignored Celeborn's existence in the show until the penultimate episode. I have a feeling why and it's part viewer manipulation.
Some thoughts on what Rings of Power might be doing with Celeborn
Wrote this a couple of months ago, so I'm reposting it here now I'm here. Despite the dudebros on Reddit wishing Celeborn back so that he'll be the bestest strongest fightingest elf ever, I don't think that is what TROP have set him up for so far in the clues we have, and I think that's probably a Good Thing.
This show loves using visual imagery to allude to some canonical event it doesnât have the rights or time to deal with. Here, Galadriel in Valinor is fighting with other elves, possibly her cousins (is the red-haired elf kid meant to make us think of a young Maedhros or Amrod or Amras?) over swan-ships. Itâs not the Kinslaying at AlqualondĂ« but itâs clearly meant as a nod to that:
And it tells you something about her personality, whether or not you know that story.
Here, sheâs leading her company over the ice. Itâs Forodwaith, not the crossing over the HelcaraxĂ« that brought her to Middle-earth, but itâs meant to tell you the same things about her that that story tells: her bravery, her stubbornness, her position as a leader, and her will to press on:
And here she is on a battlefield after a battle.
The battle itself when we see it is⊠maybe meant to feel like the NĂrnaeth Arnoediad, which was a huge disaster for the elves. (The helmet Galadrielâs holding has a Feanorian star on it - near her little finger if you zoom in.) But I think the visual imagery of the aftermath is meant to feel like something different.
Above, Galadrielâs battlefield; below, the Somme, where Tolkien fought.
I don't think this battle is meant to be an allegory for the Somme, but I think it's meant to call to mind similar things: the hell and waste and devastation of battle, on a scale that the people involved had not imagined possible.
One of the few things we know about TROP Celeborn at this point is that he rode away to a battle (unnamed) and never came back. Galadriel must presume heâs dead; look at the devastation around her and you can see why. A few people have theorised that the reason she's in her white dress in these scenes is that she's searching for him. If that's so, we know she doesn't find him. It's also implied that 'the war' he went off to is this one against Morgoth but it's not explained why he went: in book canon he's not Noldor and his king forbade any of his people to fight alongside them, on the grounds they had already brought too much death and devastation as it was.
Whyever he went to battle, we also know that he went underestimating it and unprepared for it. When she mentions him going to war says that his armour didnât fit and that she teased him for it. She says âthe war seemed so very far awayâ. If sheâs in Doriath at this time, which isnât named but sounds likely, then this must be especially so: the Doriath version of Celeborn (he has different origin stories) has lived his whole life in a magically protected land of peace and loveliness surrounded by a continent of war. And then he went to a battle that presumably looked like the one above, and never came back.
That, for Tolkienâs generation, was the story of a lot of men going off to the First World War. The gulf between expectation and reality at the start of the war was immense and while many wars in many places have that cultural memory, this one was the big one for Tolkienâs generation. Many people really believed when the war began in 1914 that it would be âover by Christmasâ, lots of young men enthusiastically joined up to do their country proud (including boys lying about their age, they were so keen to go) and the soldiers - and the country as a whole - were massively unprepared for the scale and horror of modern, industrialised warfare. Tolkien went to war in 1916; he wrote later (in the LOTR preface) that by 1918, all but one of his close friends were dead.
The war was a huge influence on his work. Sometimes directly inspired (he wrote that the Dead Marshes in Lord of the Rings âowe something to Northern France after the Battle of the Sommeâ), sometimes more indirectly, like in this from Christopher Tolkien:
âHe told me once that he began The Silmarillion âin army huts, crowded, filled with the noise of gramophonesâ; indeed some lines of verse in which appear the Seven Names of Gondolin are scribbled on the back of a paper setting out the chain of responsibility in a battalion.â
In TROP, Galadrielâs line to Theo that she met Celeborn when he saw her dancing in a glade of flowers is meant to be a shorthand reference to Beren and LĂșthien. But this part of Beren and LĂșthienâs story was also inspired by Tolkienâs own life during the war: his wife Edith dancing for him in the woods in Yorkshire, in 1917, when he was home from the trenches recovering from illness.
Again I donât think TROP is trying to show a literal allegory for the Somme and the war, but I think itâs trying to show something that feels like it, both in that devastated battlefield and in the idea of brave and idealistic young soldiers keen to go off to a distant war that theyâre unprepared for and canât possibly comprehend the horror of. Because it was so important and so formative for Tolkien, and because the writers want to glorify courage without glorifying war.
So: Celeborn. In TROP he went away to the war but we know heâs not dead, even though Galadriel reasonably thinks he must be. And they have a reasonable amount of leeway to play with him as a character around that because⊠well, Tolkien needed a Mr Galadriel and didnât care that much about fleshing Celeborn out. He fights in the Second Age, heâs âwiseâ, and he really dislikes dwarves.
The dwarf thing you can read as just elf-dwarf antagonism, but if you want to put some texture behind it then you can read it as a legacy of the dwarves fighting with the elves in Doriath and killing their king, Celebornâs relative. This does not make it okay for him to be rude to Gimli in LOTR and blame him for bringing trouble to Lothlorien - which Galadriel slaps him down for in front of everyone - but it does make him more interesting, if part of his character is that heâs still haunted by the wars of the First Age, if his desire to keep Lothlorien a little island of safety is always countered by his memory of how this failed with Doriath. And if we are going to be at all invested in him as a character in TROP they will want him to be interesting.
TV audiences donât generally find established relationships that interesting, LOTR Celeborn is just not that fleshed out or interesting a character to begin with (which is fine! he's basically a background elf there! he's fine with that!), and so TV storytelling would require more than "yay happy reunion" if itâs going to create any kind of interest at all in what we all know is the canon endgame pairing. They arenât going to use Celeborn to ditch the Galadriel and Sauron connection (which the creators have been explicit about building the whole show on), but she's got to end up with him without making everyone think "who?" or feeling sorry for her. So my bet is that if he is indeed coming in season 2, they'll a) give him his own storyline, separate from hers, and b) create some kind of tension in their relationship.
And so: where is he? In show continuity he's been missing for centuries at this point. Much of the fandom speculation is that heâs been held prisoner by Sauron or by Adar. I canât quite see how this fits plot-wise - the only prisoners we know that either of them have are the elves digging the tunnels for Adar, who (if we believe what he says about Sauronâs work) havenât been doing this for all that long. Sauron does canonically have a habit of putting enemies in prisons and then keeping them there indefinitely but TROP Sauron doesnât have any fortresses with prisons that we know about and doesnât seem in a place where heâs got that kind of power. Perhaps in RhĂ»n, where it seems thereâs a Sauron cult? Although thereâs no obvious reason why Celeborn would be there or what the purpose would be of keeping him.Â
Also, coming back from literal centuries of captivity and torture or whatever else is going to make it difficult for his plot to be about anything other than that and his recovery from that, because:Â centuries. Maedhros was held captive for thirty years and begged Fingon to kill him. Whatâs three hundred years going to do? Seems unlikely Celeborn would be swooping right back into the action in any sense, or be recognisably himself at all.
But. Assuming the show wants us to be interested in him as his own character rather than just as a plotdevice to stop Galadriel getting a bit too close to the Dark Lord. And assuming weâre still supposed to see him as a casualty of war, but in another sense than dying.
Maybe whatâs keeping him from Galadriel - and the Noldor, and the war that Gil-galad is leading - isnât that heâs locked in prison and canât get there. Maybe heâs staying away from it all, including her, on purpose. And maybe heâll get his own storyline, where he isnât just Mr Galadriel, where we get to see why and how he finds his way back?
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All this for a guy whose original casting was for a Native actor and instead went to white man Tyler. All this for a whitewashed character. All this for a guy who took a job opportunity from a Native actor.
The Alex Manes/Tyler Blackburn stans on the Roswell New Mexico tagâŠ. Fucking hell. The constant non-stop whining.
And the constant Maria hate from these asshats. You guys wanted her away from Alex and Malex and you got it, so why the anger at the character simply existing? Alex does not own Greg, Kyle or Michael. These characters can have relationships and plots independent of Alex. Michael can develop a friendship with Kyle and grow because of it, Greg can have a romance with Maria and thatâs okay and Maria and Kyle have always been good friends. Not every freaking thing in this show revolves around Alex.
The slut shaming if Maria has scenes with Greg or Kyle - why is she flirting with them etc. Shut the fuck up and take your vile trash opinions off the tag.
Maria Deluca is not responsible for Alex having a separate DeepSky plot. Take that up with the writers. I notice that Kyle does not get as much hate for having screentime like Maria - itâs always black women to blame for white faves not getting screentime. They make for easier targets because itâs just casually accepted in fandom with no pushback.
Maria gets hate if she has screentime, she gets hate as being underdeveloped if she has no screentime, she gets hate for simply being friends with other characters, for having scenes with Kyle and Greg, she gets hate for not being a good friend, she gets hate for being a good friend. Some people are not going to be happy unless Mariaâs entire story forever is her doing penance to Alex Manes. And like move on ffs. The characters already have and constantly whining about how Maria/Michael did not apologize to Alex for some perceived slight is not going to make that happen.
And itâs not the complaining about Alex not being in the episode thatâs the problem. Itâs the whining about other characters getting plot and screentime - Why is Michael having scenes with Kyle? It should be Alex. Why is Maria having scenes with Greg? It should be Alex. Why is Jones having a dog? It should be Alex. Bugger off.
If you want to whine about Maria taking away screentime from your bland white faves, at least take it off the main tags.
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I was reminded of the whitewashing and goywashing that Fox and Disney did so let me rec one of the best fics I've read that gave Dadneto, Cherik, tied in Magneto's experience as a Holocaust survivor, and Peter's relationship to his history.
The first fic is from Peter's POV and the second from Erik's. The latter is in a Jewish Comics Day collection.
The first is hard to read because it is written as chaotic as how Peter probably thinks but it is worth it.
The Building of The House series by kvikindi
*The Building of The House - So this is the story of how Peter finds and loses his father, sort of.
*Tehillim - Erik, in Israel, afterwards: another life he could have had. If.
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But they didn't introduce the multiverse. The closest the MCU got was with Mysterio lying about the multiverse in Spiderman and the Dr. Strange movie title. Canonically, they refused to acknowledge the multiverse in Wandavision. He was Ralph and not any version of Pietro.
Practically it is not going to happen. The X-Men, when they get rebooted by Marvel, are going to be IN the Marvel universe. The MCU already has a Wanda and it had a Pietro. They're not going to bring in a new Wanda and Pietro to exist alongside Elizabeth Olsen Wanda and ATJ's dead Pietro. Why would they? They gain nothing except confusing their normie audience. Wandavision is very popular and Lizzie's Wanda is popular now. Like it or not. Disney is not going to recast or even have a new untested version played by a new actress that didn't even exist in another universe show up as another Wanda. It makes no sense for them to do so. They wouldn't even let Evan play Pietro in the MCU and that's a fan favorite version.
It makes even less sense to think they would do it ethnically accurate because Disney doesn't care. They've spit in the twins' comics faces by having the MCU twins work for Hydra, and they cast white people when they had the chance in AOU. With Elizabeth Olsen being as popular as she is now, and with her show doing so well, they're never going to bring in a new actress who doesn't have established popularity or hype to "challenge" her position. Come on now. The same goes for ATJ's Pietro. His death is so tied to Wanda's development that I don't see it being reversed or replaced. They wouldn't even let Evan be a Pietro and he had an existing popularity. A new guy isn't coming in to be a Pietro.
Magneto having never been in the MCU could be cast right but again this is not a a goal of Disney's and if it happens, it will be a coincidence.
whitewashing the x-men
im allowed to like peter maximoff as a character and still hate the racism that comes with whitewashing the comic book character who was jewish yet was never portrayed by a jewish actor. same with magneto. micheal fassbenders performance is amazing but they still shouldve cast a jewish actor to play him as his main story arc is bring a traumatised jewish man who survived the holocaust and therefore doesn't trust humans to not treat mutants like they did the jews. i love the characters snd the actors but i cant deny how racist fox is by not casting the right minorities for minority roles, and i cant excuse the blatant whitewashing of pietro by renaming him to seem more american.
i love the fox x-men, its a beautiful universe with beautiful stories and characters but i won't excuse the blatant racist flaws. neither should you. as much as i love evan peters and micheal fassbender i cant be on board with casting them as the roles again now that disney owns them. they already whitewashed wanda, now is the time to correct those wrongs and represent the minorities correctly.
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Wanda and Pietro already exist in the MCU. Those roles aren't getting recast. Magneto is up for grabs though.
whitewashing the x-men
im allowed to like peter maximoff as a character and still hate the racism that comes with whitewashing the comic book character who was jewish yet was never portrayed by a jewish actor. same with magneto. micheal fassbenders performance is amazing but they still shouldve cast a jewish actor to play him as his main story arc is bring a traumatised jewish man who survived the holocaust and therefore doesn't trust humans to not treat mutants like they did the jews. i love the characters snd the actors but i cant deny how racist fox is by not casting the right minorities for minority roles, and i cant excuse the blatant whitewashing of pietro by renaming him to seem more american.
i love the fox x-men, its a beautiful universe with beautiful stories and characters but i won't excuse the blatant racist flaws. neither should you. as much as i love evan peters and micheal fassbender i cant be on board with casting them as the roles again now that disney owns them. they already whitewashed wanda, now is the time to correct those wrongs and represent the minorities correctly.
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If people had no problems with behind the scenes drama interfering with how characters were written for years, if people internalized Izzieâs actions as Izzie being awful vs Izzieâs actions happened while KH and Shonda were at war, then how can you be aghast at Alex being OOC now?Â
"Alex would never behave like this the writers made him do thisâ while simultaneously saying âIzzie was awful/she treated Alex awfully in how she leftâÂ
So itâs the writingâs fault that Justinâs exit made Alex an awful human whereas Izzieâs character was not affected by BTS at all.Â
If you can give consideration to Alexâs character, you can give the same consideration to Izzieâs.
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I didnât want to be the Vogue woman. I didnât want to be the woman who came in with the sexualized. Every time you see that sexual, mysterious, kind of cold woman, she always looks like she jumps out of bed with that blow-dried hair and that dewy skin and, you know, those Double-Zero clothes. I did not want to be that woman because I donât know that woman. And Iâve been watching that woman in movies for several years. And I felt like this was my chance to woman up. I want to present women as they really are. Itâs not always about being pretty. But it is about uncovering and feeling comfortable with the way we are and the way we look when weâre in private. You know, as soon as you walk through the door, what do you do? You take off your bra, you let your titties sag, you let your hair come off. I donât have any eyebrows. I let my eyebrows be exactly what they are. And itâs me. And I wanted that scene to be somewhere in the narrative of Annalise. That who she is in her public life and who she was in her private life were absolutely, completely diametrically opposed to one another. Because thatâs who we are as people. We wear the mask that grins and lies.
 â Viola Davis for The Wrap on the iconic Wig Scene.
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Iâll call out implied racism anytime I feel like it. Two WOC read your post and saw it because of the double standards this fandom consistently has with Elektra and her relationship with a white man, over said white manâs relationships with virtually every other person. You only felt the need to police how fans react to Matt/Elektraâs relationship though so whatâs that about?Â
Fandom is still for white people because yâall apparently âgetâ it according to this post but you still validate white supremacist stories. I donât care if you suddenly get it when youâre called out on it. I donât care. If you got it, you wouldnât have dallied in racist talking points in the first place.
So hereâs the thing⊠relationships (and âshipping) are not a zero-sum game.
You can recognise how important Elektra is to Matt Murdock without denying the sweetness of Matt and Karenâs friendship turned romance. You can be wistful about Claire moving on from Matt with Luke, while still loving Claire and Lukeâs dynamic. You can still âship Luke and Jessica like FedEx, without feeling left behind because Luke moved on with Claire. You can still love Matt and Elektra while acknowledging that it is a toxic relationship with no future for either of them. And you can revel in Karen and Frankâs friendship that may be more, without pretending how her time with Matt wasnât real and important to them both.
Because all of these stories inform the characters, facilitate growth, play with contradictions and morality, sex for its own sake, love being both selfish and selfless.
Relationships do not need to be happy (or healthy), to be enjoyed. They do not need to be âbuilt to lastâ, to be worth your time. Itâs not about who âwinsâ, is âendgameâ, or whatever. Not to the characters, and not to the story.
Just maybe try and remember that.Â
Because sometimes tunnel vision hurts you more than you realise, and you miss all the things that make the story worth telling, if youâre only interested in who makes it to the âhappily ever afterâ.
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Dick and Kory fight Deathstroke in Titans 2x05
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Kory really is the only person in this whole team with brain cells huh
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to expand on what i said here:
white people, you and yours need to remember that just because youâre a ~big fan~ of characters of color, just because you ~make so many ship posts~, that doesnât absolve you of the bad that you may do. that doesnât excuse you from being critical of your own fandom presence and fandom capital.
the most dehumanizing, demeaning, and disgusting treatment iâve seen of sam wilson and finn come not from malicious racists, but from vocal white allies who are incredibly proud about their status as being ~big name âsam wilson and finn and t'challa and poe dameron and helen cho wow do i sure love the brown folk!!â fans~.
iâve seen white fans very clearly use these characters of color to play out white savior complexes. iâve seen white fans say, âprotect [characters of color!!]â and then in the same breath, fetishize those very same characters of color.
iâve seen white fans priding themselves on ~calling out fandom racism~ but then turn around and say, âiâm just so glad scarjo is going to be the major, because my favorite actress is going to be playing my favorite ghost in the shell character!!â
iâve seen white fans use the term âklandom,â as if theyâre not white. iâve seen white people reblog intracommunity posts that are very much not meant for them. iâve seen white people very intentionally use characters/real people of color for their user icons and leave out the fact that theyâre white in their about me pages.
iâve seen white people in fandom talking about how gross malicious fandom racism is, and then turn around and appropriate and fetishize a myriad of asian cultures without seeing a problem there.
iâve seen white people in fandom speak over people of color about their own marginalization. iâve had white people in fandom (and other non-asian people of color, to be fair) speak over me and act as a ~voice for the asian community~ while my own posts about racism in fandom - posts that draw from my own lived experience - go nowhere.
white savior complexes in fandom are real. rachael dolezal syndrome in fandom is real. ally theater in fandom is so, so real.
and just because you ship finn/rey or call sam wilson your ~pwecious baby birb pwince~ or posted ONCE about how the doctor strange trailer relies on orientalism and cultural fetishism, just because you reblog this post, doesnât make you a good ally.
that lies in your actions and thinking CRITICALLY on your motivations as to your actions and the impact of your behavior and actions in fandom. only then may you even BEGIN to be a âgood ally.â allyship is a constant act and it requires constant analysis of your own privilege and power. itâs hard. itâs complex. itâs constant.
but it sure as hell doesnât start and end with âiâm gonna ship this character of color.â allyship - radical political activism - is a little harder than that.
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Did you guys know MCU Elektra put the burden of her being good on Mattâs shoulders? Did you know this showed how selfish her love was to put the burden of not taking lives on Mattâs shoulders?
This is a new one. And itâs not true.Â
Matt is the one that placed conditions on Elektra being with him. And when she couldnât keep those conditions, he shut her out completely and asked her to leave. She left. And then he chased her down. He got involved in her life again. He believed in her goodness of his own volition. In the finale, Matt is the one that asked to go with Elektra. Her response was disbelief and an attempt to dissuade him.Â
Elektra is not responsible for Matt imposing his black and white morality, his Christianity, on her. She is not responsible for Mattâs guilt. She didnât force Matt to be her morality chain.Â
This, in particular, is a gross centering of the white male protagonist, to the point that his woc love interest is blamed for actions he took alone!
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Misty Knightâs entire occupation in both Luke Cage and The Defenders is play the clueless policeman, constantly left out of the loop. The writing deliberately puts her in positions where she looks foolish and is always one step behind everyone for no reason other than a lack of interest. The woman she was supposed to be protecting from Mariah Dillard (Candace Miller in Luke Cage) is killed as a result of her ignorance (leaving her unprotected), and Candiceâs brother, who she also wants to help, follows suit in The Defenders (off-screen, ffs) following his arrest at a murder scene (this happens on Lukeâs watch). Every time she goes to bat for Luke, sheâs left looking like a fool when he contradicts her actions and her career as an officer is constantly put in jeopardy (she talks about her recent position like its demotion). The moment she loses her arm makes her look like an incompetent officer of the law, and was, of all things, in the middle of a poorly choreographed fight between Colleen Wing and her mentor, Bakuto, instead of occurring someplace integral to her character (which makes me think I wouldâve been okay with her losing her arm in Luke Cage s1 as opposed how she lost it.)
Claire Templeâs character arc was all but left behind in the first season of Daredevil, and Luke Cage, and her other recent appearances (Jessica Jones, Daredevil s2, Iron Fist and The Defenders) pretty much just make her the superhero cheerleader who constantly has to give these people pep talks. Her weary reactions to superhero hi-jinks (âstupid people run into burning buildingsâ / âLuke, you donât have to be everybodyâs heroâ)  is meant to endear her to the audience to her (and that works), but it shows the writers have no real problems with using her to further everyoneâs arc but her own, and like, really, Claire shouldnât just show up in other shows just to say âbelieve in yourself, never surrenderâ because sheâs not the focus of the plot.
The three non-white members of the Hand (Muramaki, Gao, Bakuto) are given little to nothing to do except complain and die. The sole Black member of the group (Sowande) is brutally killed and beheaded by Stick (walking garbage himself). Barring Madam Gao, everybody is pretty much cannon fodder for the lack of plot.
Malcolm just appears in a couple episodes to remind you that Jessica had a Black Best Friendâą that was also on the receiving end of her emotional bullshit. He really doesnât contribute anything tot he show besides fixing up Jessicaâs apartment yet again.
Colleen Wing spends most of her time shouting âIâm important! Iâm important to the plot!â and the narrative pretty much laughs at her and says âthat sounds fake, but okayâ. She fits in the plot like a broken puzzle piece missing its other half.
Elektraâs entire character arc continues to revolve around her dehumanization, and the whole âIâm The Black Skyâ spiel is never explained or explored, which renders the dramatics about it completely null (esp.when you consider she was supposed to have been an lit. âobject of worshipâ and not a hitman). The only real kind of retribution she gets from being subjugated to emotional and physical manipulation is when she finally gets to kill Stick (good riddance to garbage), and stabs Alexandra Reid in the back and beheads her. When the plot decides to make her the villain of the final two episodes makes very little sense. Esp. when you consider her only basic motive is to live forever outside the control of others, and sheâs quite literally leading The Hand to their demise. Her efforts are undermined by her suddenly being okay with a building collapsing on her and the show not addressing her whereabouts following said building collapse, but, hey, itâs okay, Daredevil made it out tho.
Luke Cage spends most of his time in The Defenders playing babysitter to a hapless white boy. The writerâs deliberately use Luke as means to get audiences who loathe Iron Fist to like Iron Fist (and lets be real, audiences within mcu fandom bends like branches the wind, so it worked). As previously mentioned, Luke is used as a mouthpiece to âaddressâ the racism and white privilege that Danny Rand embodies, but the show has no intention of actually dealing with it in any meaningful way (and by meaningful I mean, killing Danny Rand and erasing him from the universe) like it allowed Elektra to deal with her abusers.
Luke really doesnât do a lot interacting with anyone of any particular meaning in his story (Jessica Jones or Claire Temple) when itâs not about exposition of the episodeâs plot.
His abuse during his brief relationship with Jessica is all but swept under the rug with a âI gotta move onâ and a âcoffeeâ joke, they really donât address it. Luke Cage as a character pretty much gets the rawest deal out of any of the characters in The Defenders, because Wonder Bread Fist has pretty much been glued to his ass for all eternity (I hear heâs gonna show up in LC S2).  I dunno about anyone else, but that kills my interest in the character a great deal.
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I donât fuck with fans who hate on poc nor who repeat microaggressions about poc. I donât care if youâre a BNF. I donât care if youâre nice. That goes for the colonized minds out there too. Y'all are the worst because you know that white people will run with that and use you as their example of a poc friend.
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People seem capable of understanding that maybe Elektra was destructive for Matt (despite the fact that she was abused). I think part of it is because the narrative deliberately leads this audience to this conclusion and part of it is how the audience reacts to woc versus white women.
Itâs interesting too because Elektraâs always been pretty upfront about who she is w/ Matt. He knows her and he loves her despite the awful things sheâs done.
Jessica on the other handâŠshe had the chance to come clean. âKilgrave made me kill your wifeâ shouldâve been one of the things she told him, and she chose not to until circumstances forced her to tell him.
Itâs really frustrating because Lukeâs meant to fall in love with Jessica. If the writers werenât going to explore the issue in depth, they should have taken a different route with their relationship. At the very least, they could have made it so they didnât sleep together. Like, looking back on it, I think itâs so disrespectful.
Men in general have to conform to hypermasculine stereotypes and thereâs more pressure if youâre black, especially if you look like Luke. Black men are hypermasculinized and dehumanized. Luke is a tall, muscular, dark-skinned black man who is literally bulletproof. Heâs essentially how white people see black men; they look at whatâs on the surface and then fill in the blanks with stereotypes.
So thereâs that, plus the fact that mainstream feminism ignores the privilege and power that white women have over men of colour. White!feminists donât talk about how white women can oppress men of colour, so of course plenty of people arenât going to see what happened to Luke as abuse or even rape by deception. Theyâre going to feel sorry for Jessica because of what she was forced to do and ~how hard it was for her to hide the truth.~Â
I feel like this isnât only the audienceâs fault, but a failure in the narrative to show how Jessicaâs behaviour affects Luke. In comparison we get insight into Mattâs psyche and his complex thoughts re: Elektra.
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Elektra did not ask Matt to keep on her track to be good. Heâs the one who put that condition on her. I can link the scene where he begs her to be with him and to fight the war HIS WAY. Heâs the one that said he would follow her in the finale for S2. She didnât ask him to come with her either. Matt is the one to blame there. So please, direct your implicit commentary about selfish love to someone else, preferably Matt Murdock, rather than act as if Elektra purposefully tied her goodness to Mattâs poor unwilling white boi soul. Elektra is not responsible for Mattâs guilt. Sheâs her own damn person. And if Matt wants to control the lives she takes, thatâs on him. This is some centering of a white boy protagonist to blame Elektraâs âselfishâ love when she never even asked for Matt to make her good! Thatâs an implicit racist talking point about woc but then few in this fandom cares about that except for fellow bipoc.
jj & mm parallels
I know this likely wasnât intentional butâŠ
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