#'there there. it is ok :(.. ... you Did look kinda g league out there. ant probably wont remember you-BUT IT IS OK DONT CRY IT IS O-'

[jrueships]

Just a little guy<333333

[lucky-fallen-angel]

“Wonder Woman” Review

Non-Spoiler Review: WATCH IT! Go see it. Enjoy it and love it and know that our Princess has saved us from bad DCEU movies.

And now for my one spoiler-y-ish gripe...with lots of notes because I have a degree in this, I’m gonna use it to analyze something, ok? Ok:

Ares =/= Lucifer, no matter how much you want him to be. 

Ares and Lucifer rule over a ton of different aspects and as much as you think they are similar, they aren’t. While we are here: Ares = War in Battle, as in the horrors of War and the bloodlust, murder, etc that comes with it. It’s why Phobos and Deimos (Fear and Panic) follow him around. Athena = War in Thought, as in the planning and execution, the generals deciding on how thing should go and then how to fix it when sh*t hits the fan.

Anyway, main point is that Ares and Lucifer are NOT THE SAME THING. 

AT ALL. 

EVER. 

They both want different things that are expressed in different ways, which is why learning about Ares in the same way Diana did results in General Ludendorff (who was a real person and apparently liked the Sherman idea of TOTAL WAR, so...ok) being the Obvious Baddie is Obvious. When the truth is revealed to Diana and the audience, it raises the tension and shows off a great deal about both Ares and how he’s grown with Humanity and their ability to make War, as well as the turning point Diana must take.

Historically, WWI is the result of a lot of blocks that the Imperial powers built up at their height (right around the American and French Revolutions, as well as the end of the Napoleonic Wars) crashing down so hard that everyone is kinda surprised a small incident in the Sudan didn’t actually start it and not idiot nationalists in Sarajevo. (Seriously, look at this, it was pure dumb luck!) There is a reason that before WWI, it was considered the War to End All Wars. It was messy, horrible, bloody, and overall resulted in the deaths and displacements of so many people it’s SCARY.

When we meet Remus Lucifer Ares, he’s advocating Armistice, meaning this is around 1918, when all the powers are having their collective “well, this isn’t gonna work” moments. The Triple Entente had lost Russia to that whole Communist uprising (Russia also learned that having TWO UPRISINGS during a war does not count as ‘we give up’ when Germany is working on actually cutting through the Eastern Front). The newly-formed Allies (also including Japan and Italy in this war) were starting to get help, in the form of more bodies to throw at gunfire, from the VERY isolationist Americans and the ideological Woodrow Wilson, who thought we should have a League of Nations to not have such things happen again by having other nations tell the rest, politely, to stopit. 

Oh, and to screw with the fallen Ottoman Empire and the allied Arabs that had helped with said fall, there was Sykes-Picot. 

Basically the Armistice was good for the reason Diana said - it would result in the stop of the war that had been going on for four years, and that everyone involved thought would only last a few weeks (which I think also turned off the Americans, ‘cause we had a war like that and it ended up with similar f*ck ups). However, long-term, this was a TERRIBLE treaty because France and England basically bullied everyone into the treaties, didn’t listen to anyone, and set up for everything to come. I’m not saying they had that insight - the people at the table were the same ones who started the war - but that they had their ‘beliefs’ and the prevailing one for those two were to keep their Empires and even up the ante because this Imperialism thing would Totally Work, Lookit How Well It Works. So do Secret Deals.

So how does this make Ares into Lucifer? We have a) a fallen heavenly/powerful/godlike being who b) went against the will of their father and c) is upset with the last creation (Mankind) and d) believes they’re all bad, meaning they wish to e) destroy them because they’re destroying their father’s creation/nature/the way things were/something here to double for a reason their manpain equates to the last creation, and it f) doesn’t matter how good one or multiple ones are, all are obvious evil just g) look at this underling/person I was manipulating while they did their job and/or thing they loved that happened to hurt people/very evil human being with no redeemable value and h) join me and together we can rule the world/change things/kill them all/rule over them because i) we’re family/I’m your father/rule as father and son or something and also j) search your feelings, you know this is true, which is why I will k)kill your lover/friend/both in front of you and/or invalidate their heroic and noble sacrifice, that always works and will in no way backfire on me.

11 Easy steps, and all of them were handled at varying degrees of bad/ok to result in a ‘meh’ thing for Ares. Or I’m spoiled by the DCAU (Animated Universe) and John Rhys-Davis as Hades and whoever-else it was as their Ares.

Probably that.

The cherry on top of this 11-step mess was that Diana and he have a)the same father and b) she is the only one who can defeat him. Because of course, you can’t have a Lucifer stand-in without having a Jesus Metaphor or some sort of Savior/Messiah figure. Even if it leads to a pretty badass fight in which the rest of our protagonists look at, say ‘Our lane is over there, with the big death-plane of Obvious Love-Interest Martyrdom’ and kept themselves there and didn’t try to take a shot at Ares once, allowing Diana all the chance to take him down herself and prove herself as Badass Awesomeness of Awesome.

She also had her whole Savior of Mankind thing, but she does it in the same vein as Jesus chasing out the moneylenders at the Temple. 

That’s how you do your Obvious Jesus Metaphor, Superman. Take note.

If this had been with any other actor (up to when he powered up, sorry Remus) or any other war, there would have possibly been some groaning and overuse of the Lucifer stuff, and while I do groan and it brought me out of Ares’ whole attempt to try to be ‘poor me’ with Diana, I think her actions afterwards, as well as his actions before and what I know of the history of that time, as well as what happens afterwards, makes it a bit more of a little gripe over the glaring trope. I mean, it was tropey and could have easily failed, but for me, even with it, the fake-out, as well as Diana’s realization during that whole battle, was worth it.