#love seeing big capable men get rekt

[wyvernne]

literally so problematic but i actually love breeding kinks but i feel like i’d get canceled if i wrote one with diluc LMAO

[tclcpathy]

we need to talk about Dark Phoenix

This is going to be a VERY long post alert. And I also want to preface this by saying that this is just my analysis for my interpretation of Charles. If anyone else in the Charles squad wants to add or debate anything said in this post, feel free to message me! I would love to talk character meta and see what makes each of our interpretations unique and special!

So. Where to start with the clusterfuck of a movie that is Dark Phoenix? I mean, I had seen the dark phoenix plot play out in the old gen movies, so I thought I had a bit of an idea what they were going for, but BOY OH BOY was I wrong. Movie criticisms aside (though I thought it was actually a pretty enjoyable film all things considered, setting aside that atrocious scene where Jean puppets Charles up the stairs I mean COME ON), this movie gave me A LOT to think about in terms of character analysis for my boy. In part, I am really making this long ass unnecessary post just to get my thoughts down about how to even portray Charles moving into the future.

I have always been a very unwavering member of team Charles in the messy Charles-Erik divorce saga. I have made other posts about Charles major character flaw, but by in large Charles main motivations were for the good of human and mutant kind alike. And on a gross scale this still holds true in light of XMDP. But things got COMPLICATED man. This film threw Charles in a new light. We already knew that Charles had been altering Jeans mind in XM Last Stand, but he still more or less came out to be the good guy put up to the impossible task of trying to rein in the destructive force of the dark phoenix. He was, in essence, tasked with trying to put the ocean in a box. He may have gone about it in an ethically grey (pun intended) way, but he still came out to be a good guy with honest intentions of trying to help Jean, and even trying to protect the world FROM Jean.

But man, oh MAN does Charles look to be the main villain in XMDP. When I was watching, I was disgusted with his actions, and rightfully so. The film does a good job painting him as despicable, at least for the majority of the film. The main difference plot-wise between Last Stand and Dark Phoenix is that in XMDP, Charles alters Jeans memories BEFORE she is venom’ed by the spooky dark phoenix energy. In last stand, Charles always knew that Jean was capable of darkness, like an alter ego vying for control that he had to fight against. In XMDP, yes, Jean is still the most powerful mutant, like, EVER (get rekt en sabah nur), but she doesn’t adopt the dark phoenix personality (if you can call wanting to boink her boyfriend a ‘personality change’) until she is inhabited by the space junk. The chronic tension before the events of XMDP isn’t Jean struggling with a dark alter ego, but merely just trying to come to terms with the shear amount of power she has. She can’t control her powers because they are simply too strong to be contained.

So that begs the question… how does altering her memories and LYING to Jean help her with the chronic tension of the movie? How does altering the memory of her parents help her control her powers? Well, it doesn’t really. And this is where we diverge. This is why Charles in Last Stand comes off much cleaner than in XMDP.

So, we have to address the question, why the hell did Charles do it then? In essence, Charles doesn’t alert her memories to HELP Jean necessarily. I mean you could make the weak argument that Charles did it to protect Jean from the guilt of knowing she killed her mother, and that her father wants nothing to do with her, but even the film seems to think that this is a weak answer at best. For that matter, why does Charles not alter the memory of every child at the school with a hard to swallow past? How can he preach accepting the past to make you stronger when he turns around and makes Jean forget hers just so she doesn’t have to feel sad about her parents?

This is where it gets complicated. We all know that Charles puts everything with a pulse in the dad zone. Raven, Scott, this blue kid with a tail, this guy with memory problems who is hundreds of years older than Charles, yeah sure, throw them in the mix. But none fill the family sized hole in Charles’ life better than Jean. Charles sees so much of himself in Jean that he cannot separate himself from her identity. To Charles, Jean is not necessarily her own person, but an extension of his own consciousness, of how he relates to himself and his past (sounding familiar?? Perhaps reminding you of a whole movie devoted to Charles realizing that his surrogate sister is her own damn person??). When Charles meets Jean, he doesn’t see a girl who needs to overcome her past and accept what she is capable of for better or worse. More than anything, Charles sees the opportunity to give this struggling, lonely child what he wished he had. He puts himself into the role of father, caregiver, sole confidant. He attempts to erase her traumatic childhood and set her on a different path, the path that he thinks is best for her because it is what would have been best for him.

Again, we see Charles exhibit his fatal flaw. For someone with access to every person’s perspective, he cannot see past his own damn ego. Charles sees the people in his life, Erik, Raven, Jean, as players that he can control. And Charles is stubborn with a capital S. He is an unwinning combination: he has the perspective of someone who is extremely privileged with the notion that he genuinely knows exactly what everyone is going through. That he has observed everyone’s truth exactly as it is without his own privileged filter.

This is what kills Raven (other than Jennifer Lawrence’s absolute disdain for the series). Charles will not listen to anyone, convinced that he is a good person, and that he ultimately does what is best for those around him. When Raven brings her concerns to him, he dismisses her time and time again. And when Raven dies and Hank confronts him, he is STILL convinced that he did what is best for Jean, despite the obvious truth that he was WRONG. Full stop. If Jean had been allowed to process her past with her powers, she could have been able to have some element of control over her powers even after she is inhabited by the dark phoenix juice. He simply cannot believe that his actions set in motion the events that kill his sister. And so he comes across as extremely disingenuous and ignorant, like a child thinking pulling a rug over the broken lamp will make it go away. In short, he looks like a big bald idiot.

And I’m not convinced Charles has really learned his lesson. To be honest, I don’t remember exactly what changed Charles’ mind other than Erik deciding he’s going to ’86 Jean. And Erik calls Charles on it (it is always a treat when Erik bitchslaps Charles with reality). Until Charles realizes that the people in his life are their own people, he will never understand. And all of his pontification will fall on empty ears.

I’m not even going to get into Charles clout chasing and basically being an attention whore for the American government, because I do think this comes from a genuine place of wanting mutants to be seen as saviors instead of threats. It does humanize Charles to some degree; we are all victim to loosing our heads when it comes to fame and attention yadda yadda etc.

So, where to go from here? Well, Charles basically has a lot of ‘splaining to do when it comes to his future in the XMCU. I’m rejecting canon that he retires from the school, despite how cute his little chess match with Erik is. This seems like a cop out, dismissing Charles from the main x men plot lines instead of dealing with his ongoing character development. And understandably so, no one wants another movie devoted to Charles learning how to not be a dickbag. Well, except me I guess.

Here’s how I see his development going forward: we all know Charles has a lot to make up for. Step one is swallowing his damn ego and seeing the world from a different viewpoint. Charles has to rebuild the trust placed in him by Hank, Jean, his whole damn school, in essence his family. Charles is no longer the infallible patriarch, the almighty, almost deification of a father figure. This façade has been ripped away, and he must learn to accept this new way of perceiving himself in the world.

OKAY well that’s all I have to say for now. If you actually managed to read all of this, holy shit why but also thank you and I hope it made one iota of sense. Feel free to message me and talk more about it, because I don’t think my thoughts on the matter are fully realized and I would love to further develop the subject. Until then lovlies!