#and although multiple characters have the deborah backstory the circumstances are really different

[anghraine]

Speaking of non-canonical headcanons and also GW2, here are some (technically) one-sentence non-canonical headcanon backstories for my human PCs:

Lady Althea Fairchild is a proud Ascalonian aristocrat born in Ebonhawke, then brought to Divinity's Reach and raised there for her and her older sister's safety—but Althea chose to give up her safe and frivolous existence after her sister found purpose among the Seraph only to be lost in battle.

Warmaster Xiulan Azar is a descendant of Canthan and Orrian immigrants who have scraped by in the Salma District for many years; she rarely speaks of her Orrian family history and few know about it, but it has impacted her sense of identity and legacy as powerfully as her Canthan side, and fuels the ferocity of her opposition to Zhaitan.

Agent Kate Sandford is no less Ascalonian in heritage or identity than Althea, but grew up in abject poverty and ended up in a bandit gang before becoming disaffected and joining the Separatists as a thief, scout, and sometime cook, returning home in frustration a few years later in search of a more effective way to help her people.

Lightbringer Gwen is, like Kate, a former bandit with a strong sense of her Ascalonian origins, though her hard-edged good sense prevented her from getting carried away to the same extent, all the more after the disappearance of her estranged Seraph sister led her to extricate herself and turn hero—but she remains tough and resolute, determined to do whatever has to be done.

Magister Isabel Batista is the orphaned daughter of Ebon Vanguard soldiers and was more or less taken in by her friend Petra's family, and happy to use her flair for necromancy to protect their tavern and homes while dreaming of acceptance into the Queensdale Academy—a dream she achieved, and then surpassed by joining the Durmand Priory's fight against her natural enemy, Zhaitan.

[geraltcirilla]

Exploring Karen’s Past

In this post I’m going to be going over things we know about Karen from details dropped in Daredevil canon, looking at what cast have said about her past, and her comic origins to hypothesize where the show might be going with her.

This will be under a cut because it gets quite long.

All the things we know about Karen so far in the MCU canon:

She was from a small town of Fagan Corners, Vermont that had around 400 people. (2x05)

Her parents are Penelope and Paxton Page.

She was on the basketball team in high school. (1x07)

Her brother Kevin Page died in a motor vehicle accident at the age of sixteen. According to the news article: At about 1:40 pm, Kevin Page was driving his car. While heading east on Vermont Route 12 from the hill Road exit ramp off Interstate 89 Page veered off the roadway into a chain-linked fence. The responding medical services sent his body to Windler Medical Center where he was pronounced dead on arrival. It took some time before the state police was able to resolve the investigation of the incident. The article was titled “Mystery Accident Causes Teen Fatality”. (2x09)

Karen says her brother wasn’t good and tying ties so she used to do it for him. When asked what he was like by Matt she said "Uh, he's sweet. He's a good brother.” (2x04)

When Wesley asks her if she loves New York she replies “I haven’t been here long enough.” (1x11)

She appears to have no friends or relationships outside of Matt and Foggy. She does not appear to be in contact with her family.

"Do you really think this is the first time I've shot someone?" Karen to Wesley (1x11)

When discussing her past with Ben and the information he uncovered on her: "Stories like this are built on sources, Miss Page. Credible sources. I did some digging into your, uh past activities.” (1x04) / "And who'll believe me when they start digging? When they find what you found when you were looking into me." (1x12) / “Look, Ben didn't care, and I don't, either." (2x09) / “Although, you know, why you'd wanna see good in the man who pulls the trigger is beyond me.” (2x10)

Things cast have said regarding Karen’s past:

Deborah Ann Woll noted that Page's backstory would be different than the one from the comics. source

"There’s something that happened in Karen’s past — we allude to it, Ben alludes to it — and when she grabs the gun she says, “You think this is the first time I’ve ever shot somebody?” That's a secret from her past that she doesn’t want anyone to know. The fact that she shot him once, you can explain that as self-defense; but then she pretty much unloaded the gun into him. That crosses a bit of a line. The last thing she would want is for those two to be horrified by what she’s done." -- Steven Deknight, showrunner of Daredevil season 1. source

Karen’s story in the comics:

Her family was well-off.

She graduated with a 3.8 GPA from the University of Vermont.

Her father became the super villain Death’s Head, who fought Daredevil and ultimately died saving Karen’s life.

She begins making pornographic movies while hooked on heroine.

She is ultimately killed by Bullseye.

MCU vs Comics

Karen does not have a brother in the comics.

In high school Karen was on the cheer squad in the comics but the basketball team in the MCU.

Where in the MCU she has a dark past, in the comics she has an innocent past but a grim and ultimately tragic future.

In both the MCU and comics Karen’s relationship with Matt dissolves after he reveals his identity as Daredevil.

In MCU Karen leaves Nelson & Murdock to become a journalist, in the comics she leaves Nelson & Murdock to become a film actress.

In the comics: Karen grabbed Bullseye's gun and threatened to kill him, but Bullseye was not scared because he knew his gun was not loaded. / In Marvel’s Daredevil: Karen grabbed Wesley’s gun, who claimed he wouldn’t have left a loaded gun on the table within arms reach of Karen She shoots him and it turns out the gun was loaded, and he dies.

Things the MCU has not confirmed yet:

The age difference between Karen and her brother Kevin.

When Karen moved to New York from Vermont.

Breakdown

Although it was confirmed Karen’s story will be different in the show versus in the comics, we can assume writers will take inspiration from the comics and borrow some ideas. Throughout Daredevil, Defenders and Punisher we have seen that the writers don’t ignore the comics, they simply take inspiration and let the character grow from there. So I don’t think it’s wise to entirely disregard the comics in our own theories. We can use them as a starting point and go from there.

For example, we can assume Karen and Wilson Fisk will have a confrontation in Daredevil season 3. If Wilson finds out Karen killed Wesley he’ll likely want revenge, and might hire Bullseye to kill her. The show won’t actually kill her like the comics do but I can see them psyching us out to think she was going to die and severely injuring her in the process. In this way they are both faithful to the comics but have created their own unique story, which is really what the MCU is all about.

We can use the same logic and apply it to her past. Take a little bit of the comics, use the knowledge we have from the show, add a bit of reasoning and you can piece together what might have happened.

A common theory I’ve seen is that Karen killed her brother, whether intentionally or unintentionally, from what she had told Wesley about shooting a man and what we know about Kevin being dead. This is unlikely as her brother died in a car accident. But that doesn’t mean Karen hasn’t shot someone before. The wrong thing to do is assume every time Karen discusses her past, she is talking about the same singular traumatic event. I believe multiple things happened to Karen and her brother’s death was the instigation of it all.

Hypothesis of Karen’s timeline

We can start by assuming Karen had a normal happy childhood with her upper class wealthy family (starting where the comics did). She was close with her brother, close enough to tie his ties for him. (We can assume they were close in age due to this, but more on that later.) She was on the high school basketball team and she was a “mean three-point shooter”. Then her brother dies in a MVA at the age of 16. This is the beginning of Karen’s downward spiral.

The circumstances surrounding the death of described as “mysterious” in the news article. At the time the article was written the death was still unsolved, which is strange considering it was a single car crash into a chain-link fence, what’s there to be confused about? How is that so hard to piece together? Ultimately the police were probably puzzled as to how the car crashed in the first place if no one else was involved. Car accidents usually involve two people unless the one person is altered level of consciousness from drugs or alcohol and simply drove themself into a wall. But we can assume Kevin’s blood work was clean because if this was the case the death would not be mysterious, the investigation would not have taken so long to wrap up, and the title of the article would be “Intoxicated Teen in Tragic Accident”.

Everything surrounding Kevin’s death is strange but we can assume Karen had nothing to do with it. A) She’s only a teenager herself at the time, B) The news article does not mention a sister or another person involved in the crach, and C) Karen is presumably incredibly close with her brother, so close that to this day he is still a sore subject for her (despite several years having gone by since then). She cries when she sees his news article and lies to Matt that he is alive by using present-tense when describing him. But if Kevin’s death was strange and Karen wasn’t involved, who was and what happened?

This is where I introduce Karen’s father, who we know nothing about in the show: Paxton Page. In the comics he is the villain Death’s Head. Brief run-down: He was a scientist who created the cobalt bomb, refused to sell it to the US government, was branded a traitor, continued to work on it in secret, went insane because of the radiation, developed superpowers and fought Daredevil, and died saving Karen from a molten cobalt spill. Remember, to figure out what the MCU’s truth is you take what the comics give you and you adjust it to the universe of Daredevil. So let’s assume in Daredevil Paxton is still a villain, just not insane and super-powered from radiation. A villain more suited for the “real world” of the MCU. Paxton would be evil in the Fisk or Wesley sort of sense: manipulative, self-serving, megalomaniac. And let’s say he is a scientist and is working on weapons for the government (or a private contractor) (which is why he is wealthy). He’s evil not because because he can project fireballs, but because he doesn’t care who his weapons hurt as long as he is paid. If Karen’s father is a villain or shady we can probably connect Kevin’s death to him. Either Paxton was directly responsible for Kevin’s death because Kevin found out what his father was doing and was going to rat on him, or the government/private contractor Paxton was working for killed him as revenge for Paxton not sharing his “new weapon” with them (the cobalt bomb, or in the show something different.)

Moving on. So what happens to Karen after Kevin’s death? I believe Karen took Kevin’s death harder than anyone in her family because of the tiny hints we are given throughout seasons 1 and 2 of Daredevil to how close they were. (She said she tied his ties for him as kids and she is still raw over his death years later as she A) weeps at seeing the news article of his death and B) inadvertently lies to Matt that he is still alive by describing him as “sweet” and a “good brother” in present-tense.) When siblings are close it’s usually because they are close in age, so I think it’s fair to assume Karen and Kevin are either Fraternal or Irish twins. 

This is where I go back and reference Karen’s darkest history in the comics: the heroine addiction and pornography. I think the writers will dabble with this a bit, but not to the extremes of the comics. Karen’s downward spiral in the comics comes after she moves to LA to pursue a career in acting, which happens in her future. Like I said before in the show, the darkest part of Karen’s life happened in the past. If acting wasn’t the instigation it was no doubt the death of her brother. This especially makes sense because the brother didn’t even exist in the comics, so he was invented specifically for the show and specifically to be a key piece of Karen’s dark and mysterious past.

So her brother dies, right? And she’s devastated, her whole world is over, and she is just 16 herself. What happens when 16 year olds think their life is over? They act out. Drugs, drinking, partying, etc. (We know Karen can hold her liquor from Daredevil.) She’s probably going to try and escape from her realty through drugs, but not something hard like heroine from the comics. Something a teenager could get at a party like ecstasy or other pills. (Once again taking an idea from the comics and watering it down with a spin that would fit in the current verse the writers are working in.) And what happens when a teenage girl is getting fucked up at a party without anyone looking after her? Boys are going to try and prey on her. It would be so easy for teenage Karen to find herself in a situation where someone is trying to hurt her or rape her because she is vulnerable. But we all know Karen will do whatever it takes to protect herself. Cue her shooting some fuckboy to death after he tries to attack her. This is her killing a person in her past without making her a murderer (which would be inconsistent with her characterization).

Ben and Karen had discussed twice in season one how her past made her an unreliable witness to Fisk’s crimes. So it’s something you can easily find doing a background check but nothing so illegal it would get her into trouble. Just hurt her reputation. But it’s also something neither Ben nor Ellison care about, so likely something they can sympathize with. I think a rich little party girl drunk as shit killing someone in self defense as right about fits that narrative, doesn’t it? Hell, add in Karen having been suicidal at the time (Ingredients: just lost an immediate family member + only a child + probably a drug and alcohol problem = recipe for suicidal ideation) or even attempting suicide and all her credibility as a witness goes out the window. It’s not right or fair but it’s how the world treats depressed people--they aren’t trustworthy or reliable. And you can bet your ass Fisk would’ve spun the hell out of this story if she took a swing at him on her own.

This is not necessarily saying that’s exactly what happened and why she shot someone, but I’m pretty confident her brother’s death and the possible shooting are not related and are in fact two separate incidences. I’m also pretty sure whoever Karen shot, it was done in self defense.

So if all of this stuff had happened to Karen (hypohetically) it would make sense why she would leave Vermont and move to New York to reinvent herself. She’s running away from her past.

Conclusion

That’s about all that I got at the moment. I just wanted to introduce some ideas I thought people could mull over that they hadn’t been thinking about before when it comes to Karen. 

Her father is a villain in the comics.

Her “killing” someone in her past is a different incident than her brother’s death.

That multiple events could have happened to her in succession rather than one single event.

Her brother’s death is the instigation to the chain of events that has her leave Vermont and cut off ties with her parents.