#Also would have been interesting to see how a genuine Magneto redemption arc would have happened

[cocoabubbelle]

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

Once again, I’ve done that thing where I get progressively more annoyed the more I think about a scene in a comic book (yes, this blog really deals with the important, hard-hitting issues), and that’s how I now feel about this scene.

Under a cut, because I have too many thoughts.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that Pyro is getting some small taste of character development, and maybe the beginnings of a redemption arc.  I’m all for that!  I appreciate this line being in there.  But it’s clunky dialogue for both Iceman and Pyro, and for Pyro, especially, it comes out of nowhere.  Bobby has at least had some build in in earlier issues showing that he’s starting to become more vicious, especially the scene in Savage Avengers (during King in Black) and his revenge-for-Kate maiming of the soldier.

There has been no indication up until now that Pyro has any kind of regret over his past actions (at least not in Marauders, although he did show back regret when he was dying of Legacy), or that he’s starting to learn some kind of “better way” from the X-Men.  There have been no little suggestions of Pyro starting to embrace the Marauders’ mission, or to start to realize that you don’t have to kill people to win.  (He does say that in the Storm-centered issue, while relating a flashback of something that we didn’t actually see happen in the books originally). Pyro has just been bopping along with the group, merrily burning things and getting into fights and drinking, and he suddenly announces that he’s been rethinking his old ways.  It’s actually kind of odd that Marauders is the group that leads Pyro down this path, because they are generally more vicious than X-Men usually are – you’ve got Lockheed maiming people, and Kate solidifying a rifle through two soldier’s legs.  In fact, given the maimed soldiers coming after them as new Reavers, and Verendi continuing to cause trouble, I’d expect Pyro to be arguing that mercy doesn’t actually work – their enemies keep coming back strong than ever.  

So I don’t know where Pyro’s change of heart is actually coming from?  It’s like this character development has been happening in the background, and Duggan suddenly gave us a little glimpse of it, rather than actually showing the readers what’s been happening the entire time.  Like I half expect Pyro to also suddenly announced that he, Iceman and Bishop are now in a three-way poly relationship, and also they all helped Shinobi deal with his father issues while beating up Fenris, so that’s why Shinobi is so friendly and cooperative with the group.  You didn’t actually get to see it happen on panel, but trust me, it happened!      

And the idea of Pyro and Iceman on opposite character arcs, with Bobby becoming more aggressive and no longer holding back, while St. John learns restraint, is potentially very interesting!  But we’ve barely seen any of this in action.  As I’ve said before, Pyro’s supposed role as the loose cannon of the group is mostly an informed trait, he hasn’t really been shown getting out of control or crossing the line.  It would have been interesting to contrast Bobby and Pyro’s different fighting styles, to show how they are rubbing off on each other (yes, innuendo intended).  

Actually, I have a whole list of little ways that Duggan could have seeded Pyro’s “redemption arc” far in advance, so that he doesn’t just awkwardly blurt out things like “I think this group is bringing out the best in me.”:

-        Pyro actually getting out of control in battle and having to be reined in, not just being frequently reminded of the “no kill” rule.  Obviously he couldn’t step too far out of the line without being kicked off the team, but something like Pyro starting to indiscriminantly torch a building, only for Emma to stop him because she senses that there are civilians hiding inside.  Then Emma can mentally yell at him for being careless.  Pyro maybe reflects and feels a little bad, because he will happily kill the hell out of soldiers, but he doesn’t want to accidentally kill bystanders.

-        Storm (or even Callisto) having a “talk” with Pyro about restraint, and how he can work more effectively in battle by using his fire to carefully target enemies rather than just flame-throwing all over the place (although sometimes his “shock and awe” method works, too).

-        Someone like Emma or Bishop actually talking to Pyro about his tendency to jump straight to “kill” when he’s angry.  When Pyro wants to kill Yellowjacket and burn the Verendi kids, he just comically dismissed by both Magneto and Emma.  It would have been interesting to have someone actually talk to him about it.  I’m not looking for a therapy session, but something like Bishop pointing out that leaving Yellowjacket alive to “escape” will be more effective in the long run, etc. etc.  Instead Emma just leaves Pyro standing there, just to reiterate how unimportant he is in this book.      

-        More contrast between Bobby and Pyro’s fighting styles, especially near the start of the book, with Pyro obviously more vicious and aggressive, while Bobby is holding back.  Maybe have let the boys talk about the use of violence, and whether it is justified.  This doesn’t have to take up much room, it could be like one page of after-battle discussion, or even little comments during battle.  Then we could also see their styles gradually change as they come to like and respect each other.

-        Pyro actually having to face some of the horrifically burned victims that he has maimed (or family members of those that he has killed).  I know the Reaver confronting Bobby was part of Duggan’s “Bobby is turning into a badass” arc, but I think it would have been meaningful to have one of the Reavers be a soldier that Pyro has burned.  (In fact, none of the Reavers seemed to be soldiers that Pyro, specifically, had injured, which is odd given his status as the supposed “violent loose cannon” of the group.)  Duggan could have actually done both, and contrasted Bobby and Pyro’s reactions. Bobby is defiant at maiming a soldier that he thinks had a hand in killing Kate.  Pyro is confronted by a soldier that he burned (maybe while the soldier was even trying to surrender or run away), and reflects that he may have gone too far.  

-        Pyro giving some indication that he is starting to care about the Marauders’ mission beyond just a job, and a fun excuse to drink and fight.  You’d think Pyro might have some warm fuzzy feelings about delivering medicine to people, given his slow, painful death from illness.  And maybe feeling empathy for sick humans would show Pyro that he can feel some greater empathy for humans in general.  We do see Pyro put a comforting arm around Proteus when the Moira McTaggert hospital is unveiled in Madripoor, so I’ll give Duggan that (even if that gesture also feels like it came out of nowhere).  

-        Pyro receiving praise from people that he has rescued, and basking in the attention.  Pyro has in the past been written as a show-boating attention hog (and Duggan even reflects that in his “funny” fantasy of Pyro being greeted by an adoring crowd on Krakoa, not that I think Duggan actually put the research in).  During his Freedom Force days, Pyro seemed to get into the idea of being a “hero,” and is very cocky and cheerful when saving Longshot and some kids from a dinosaur.  I think Pyro likes being perceived as a hero, and getting attention, even if he isn’t really a very heroic person.  So show Pyro getting thanked by a mutant child or a little old lady that he’s saved.  Show Pyro feeling touched and gratified by that, since he spent so long as a bad guy.

-        Pyro talking about saving Senator Kelly.  Does he regret it?  Does he stand by his actions?  Is he completely disillusioned by Kelly’s death shortly afterwards?  Or is he happy that he at least managed to change Kelly’s mind.  Pyro probably wouldn’t bring it up himself, but I’m surprised that no X-Men have said anything to him about it.  

-        Pyro talking to his old Brotherhood pals about his experience on the Marauder, maybe showing how his way of thinking is changing, arguing that the X-Men aren’t so bad, and that their “non-violence” can actually get things done.

This sounds like a lot, but even a few little moments or bits of dialogue could have gotten slipped into fight scenes to build up to Pyro’s changing attitude, rather than just have him announce it out of nowhere.  

Of course, the series isn’t finished.  Duggan might have some really interesting development planned for Pyro in future issues!  But I hope that if he does, it’s actually seeded early on and develops organically, rather than coming out of nowhere.  21 issues in, I’m not optimistic.  The sad thing is, I like some of the “funny” things that Duggan has done with Pyro.  I like him gambling with Bishop, Shinobi and Bobby at the Gala.  I like his bet with Storm.  I even like him biting Batroc.  I just wish he would treat the character as something other than an afterthought, and I wish we saw more of Bobby and Pyro’s newfound friendship and development, because it could be genuinely interesting if they actually got some proper time in the spotlight!

In conclusion, I should change my URL to @constantlysaltyaboutmarauders, because that’s all I talk about these days.

[flying-elliska]

Shadow and Bone Season 1 Review

Ok so I got distracted by a need to watch all of Ben Barnes' filmography (lmao) but here is my review : It was really fun to watch and it was clearly made with love which is already the main thing with YA fantasy, which is often turned into a soulless moneygrab when put on screen. The actors were GREAT. I did think that the Crows suffered from being mashed up with the Shadow and Bone story, but they were still a highlight. I also think it was a bit rushed, esp. when it came to Alina's training. The costumes were beautiful, I want a kefta now. Plus the crossover fanfic interactions btw the SaB characters and the Crows were just pure joy. Also Milo, obviously <3 I'm in hyperfixation mode so here, have an essay :

The "Shadow and Bone" Characters :

- Jessie Mei Li !!!!!! She really made me like Alina so much more than in the books, she absolutely is the 'human embodiment of literal sunshine' and she was a joy to watch. Her character's arc is cliché but her acting is so expressive and endearing, I really felt for her all the way through. (maybe I'm biased bc Jessie talking about her ADHD and seeing her thrive at the same time is like!!! i love them they deserve all the best.) I like that they made Alina more proactive - even though she does make some stupid decisions... but I just don't understand people who put that down as bad writing, like ??? have you ever met a real person who only makes wise, good decisions ?? a character like that would either be at the end of their story or just in the background because that makes them static. The things with the maps in the beginning does a good job of illustrating how she is just this one girl making rash, erratic decisions out of fear and loyalty and doesn't have a sense of the bigger picture, caught in the tide of bigger events. It works for her character. When it comes to the choice of making her half-Shu, I do think it really makes sense re: her character feeling like an outsider but I do understand the criticisms that the microaggressions felt too relentless and one-note. I am really looking forward to them introducing Tamar and Tolya and hopefully connecting to them over her heritage in a more positive way.

- Mal in the books was one of the most annoying YA characters I've ever come across, so I really liked that they made him much more of a loyal, devoted friend. I found his relationship with Alina cute, it really gives us the sense that these are two orphans who found a home in each other, childhood best friends (and potential sweethearts) separated by war, two army grunts and ordinary people caught up in the wheels of power and war that usually crushes people like them, it's a great way to introduce the dynamics of their world and it's a trope that always makes me emo. It felt a bit too one note to me, though, and too heavily on the nose, like Mal's only personality was his attachment to Alina (and his resentment towards the Grisha) and too much of her emotional arc also relied on him. Them hitting us over the head with the meadow scenes felt like pure telling instead of showing and it ended up being super repetitive and kind of annoying. I am willing to like this pairing, but I wanted more scenes of them just having conversations about things and really understanding why they like each other beyond the whole childhood friends bond that we're asked to accept exists at the beginning. So I hope there's more depth there in next seasons.

- Ben Barnes!!!! Just jksdfhgkdjghdf. I'm not a big villain stan usually and I hated the Darkling in the books but DAMN his performance is just amazing. They managed to make him more sympathetic and human while at the same time making clear the stuff he does is deeply horrible. There's the Magneto-aspect of 'well clearly his methods are fucked up but he's addressing a terrible injustice nobody is doing anything about' that makes it very tempting to root for him ; and again, well, like, Ben Barnes is so hot and charismatic it feels uncomfortable (which I guess is part of the point lol). His loss of humanity is, up to a point, understandable, brought about by despair, loneliness, grief and a sense of powerlessness - living so long he starts to see other people as disposable, losing so many people he stops caring, seeing over and over how hate never seems to stop, etc. It's a logical explanation for going insane.

But the hunger for power is also very much present as a motivation and this ambiguity is there constantly. Does he maybe come to genuinely care for Alina or is it totally bullshit ? I think he does, he's just so fucked up that it comes out as possessiveness and a need to control her. He wants Alina to be his equal but he's incapable of treating her that way. It's tragic, in a sense, but the show doesn't excuse his actions either. Like his monstrosity is a product of this world full of injustice, yes, and that warrants some compassion, monsters are always a symptom of their environment in some ways and dehumanizing them completely is an excuse ; but at the same time, he sabotaged his own cause anyway the moment he started to treat other people like things, as he does with Alina, because that just perpetuates the cycle of violence and hate. At some point he started feeling like he was the only solution and he was owed power for his sacrifices, and he's using his cause as an excuse. When Alina came to him, there was a possibility for redemption, taking down the Fold, and it's a test because there is finally someone on his level of power. But instead of seeking to remedy the power imbalance between them, he made it worse, by lying to her, manipulating her, etc, and the antler collar is the ultimate sign of this.

I love those scenes towards the end (the antler-based body horror has big Hannibal vibes, so messed up). I like Alina telling him they could have had this, that she had compassion for him and his cause, that they could have worked together, and he's the one responsible for screwing it up and this time his claim that he's the misunderstood victim ("Make me your villain") appears delusional and self-serving instead of somewhat justified. The almost-lovers to enemies vibes, the sense of lost potential, and the angst of the whole 'oh you could finally have been loved by people, too bad you fucked it up !', very juicy. There is this fundamental idea that power/respect/love is not something you are owed no matter how good your intentions are or because you're strong or you have suffered or you're willing to commit horrible drastic actions, you have to keep proving you deserve it, and trying to claim power without responsibility of care turns you into a monster. The thing with the stag was an excellent metaphor of the fact that there's things you can't take, they have to be given to you, and the wonderful power there is in understanding that is what allows Alina to harness the stag amplifier's power. This is really when she escapes his grim utilitarian outlook and a different way forward and owns her own power fully on her own terms.

Anyway I hope Alina gets to beat the shit out of him at some point that would be very sexy but I'm also looking forward to see how their arcs parallel and diverge from each other as Alina starts to grapple more with the implications of her power and the harsh dilemmas of war and her own dark side. I want to see him become scared of her, and I feel it will be more visible than in the books where he just has this cold aggressive facade all the time. This one feels a lot more openly emotional which is just a lot more interesting.

- As for the other characters ; Zoya mostly made me sad. The actress has the perfect vibes but I'm not sure I love their take on her character so far, it does make sense in terms of the later books - that she has internalized prejudice regarding her mixed-race heritage, that she is jealous of Alina because of how hard she's fought to get where she is and Alina kind of takes it away from her, etc. But I would have liked to see a bit more of her being badass and sharp-tongued in a clever (even if mean) way instead of spending most of her time being rejected by men and being racist towards Alina. I did like the ending though, of her actually seeing the monstrosity of the Darkling in action and the mention of her aunt. And her brief bonding with Inej was great, just because it was badass but also maybe because it could be a part of Zoya learning to accept her Suli heritage in turn, maybe not right away but in time, when thinking of that part of herself, she won't only think of her parents' ruined marriage and all the pain it caused, but also of that badass and brave acrobat girl who went toe to toe with these really scary monsters without even having any powers and !!!!!

- Also Leigh's cameo was so cute and as an aspiring writer this is just such wish fulfillment

- I honestly think that having the Crows there actually made the S&B story better ? Not only in terms of the much needed levity breaks but also in terms of themes. For instance, Matthias and Nina's story gave us a really raw and visceral view of how the Grisha are hunted. And Inej's relationship to Alina really gave us a sense of what Alina actually means to people who believe in the Saints in a way that doesn't feel just like 'ugh those superstitious people' because we know that Inej's faith is part of what makes her who she is and a person with morals, and something that saw her through the worst moments of her life. It feels so special that she got to meet Alina and given a sign that maybe the world is not completely shitty. And Alina's kindness towards Inej really gives you a sense that she might be, or become worthy of that belief in time, or at least that she wants to, that she's figuring out her power to really touch people's lives might be a good thing, and that she's starting to accept this responsibility more fully. And her arming Inej is a nice parallel to that. I'm very emotional about this scene, because one of the first things we see of young Alina is her taking out a knife to defend Mal from the bullies, because she's protective and brave, but she's also aware the world is a shitty place, and so her giving that knife to Inej is a sort of spiritual transmission and recognition of sorts, that she trusts Inej with that fighting power, that she'll use this knife to defend herself and her loved ones and not abuse it. It's so interesting. And a counter point to the Darkling's fucked up relationship to power that Alina might at some point get afraid she'll replicate. That you could see Alina trying to gather followers and using people's admiration for her like he did but instead she sets them free and empowers them. It's great. And I feel that when Inej takes to the seas, she'll think about Alina. (I do hope somebody tells her Alina's not dead at some point though god). Girls giving each other knives is my spirituality, honestly.

- And I also noticed an interesting parallel between Kaz and the Darkling in terms of being two emo dudes who like to wear black, are prone to violence and have a thing for two very powerful women they think are special and want to have at their side, but of course, they go about it in very different ways. The Darkling comes at it from a place of power while Kaz comes from a place of utter powerlessness, first of all, and he understands why it's important to set Inej free. Him spending the entire season trying to earn enough money to pay off Inej's indenture is the opposite to the Darkling putting that collar on Alina and while I do have issues with how the show portrays him, I do love that. Love is about setting the person you love free !!!! And that confrontation scene was so powerful, when Kaz tells the Darkling Alina was tired of being a captive ! Drag him !

- As for Genya, I liked the actress and her chemistry with Alina, but I'm not sure they did a great job of making her arc very clear, for instance what it means for her to get that red kefta, her relationship with the other Grisha, etc. Her and David are already very cute though. Also very much looking forward to see where that goes.

So yeah I think they did a great job with this bit actually, I enjoyed a lot more than I think I would and even though it is a very tropey story, there's plenty of depth there too.

The Crows :

- I'm a bit more nitpicky about this because I care about these characters so much. I think overall the problem is that the SaB story in the books happens on this massive scale with enormous stakes, and that next to that the Crows' issues feel less important ; it's like their impact is distorted by the gravity of the much larger story. Like for instance, Kaz in the books is very much at the center of everything, this larger than life trickster figure who knows and controls almost everything by sheer cleverness, and he has this sense of allure and mystique that can't happen here, and so his aura just shrinks. On top of that they're not on their home turf. Being introduced to these characters before they've reached their full levels of badass is weird - there is a reason why prequels generally happen after the main stuff, because they count on the love you have for these characters at their full potential to make you interested in their story when they were less badass and interesting. So I had several moments where I was like 'oh this feels wrong'. Tbh the idea that they would even volunteer to kidnap Alina in the first place, what with Inej's backstory, feels kind of wrong, esp since they had no idea of what would happen to her if they succeeded.

- But I still enjoyed a lot of it though, especially the fact that they were this force of chaos in the midst of this bigger narrative that's a lot more self-serious. The bits with the train, or the circus acts were very clever. A lot of the best moments in the show happen when they come to disturb the other plot in unexpected ways. I'm still dead over the whole 'Alina jumps into their carriage' scene, that was fucking gold. The team up at the end !!!! Alina and Kaz making a deal ! Inej stabbing the Darkling !!!! Them stealing the Darkling's carriage !!! They don't give a shit that the story is supposed to be super dramatic it's great.

- Jesper is the one character they completely nailed from start to finish and he's probably my favorite part of the whole show. He's very funny without being reduced to the role of comic relief ; he's just so! damn! cool!!!!!!! I honestly feel this is a thing they actually did even better than in the books, or at least Six of Crows where I felt Jasper kind of disappeared behind Kaz and they insist a lot on his flaws and issues. So before we dig more into those problems I love that they gave him time to be this ultra badass who saves the day several times ; while at the same time, hinting at further developments like his powers or his gambling issues. Kit Young is just perfect, confident without being arrogant, a bit cold when it comes to crime while at the same time being so obviously caring with Inej - I loved their friendship, that was so sweet. My main criticism is that they should have made it clearer he was bi because there are already people calling him gay and that's very annoying. I know some people had a problem with his hookup and like...I can see it's a bit of a cliché...the charming badass bisexual adventurer....it's a trope I kind of love though lmao and the scene itself felt kind of cute and fun. He's not the only person who is shown to have an active sexuality and he's also not the only queer person around and we know he's going to have a more substantial romantic arc later so eh. On a larger note I loved the little casual hints of completely normalized queerness - Nadia thirsting over Zoya, Fedyor and Ivan, Poppy, etc. Having grown up with fantasy where queerness was either completely erased or very tormented and problematic, this was refreshing as hell.

- Inej and Kaz...my faves... They have a kind of relationship which feels so rare and unique in terms of what exists on TV and while I don't feel they entirely replicated it, the core is still there - the mutual respect and building of trust, the longing, the repression, the trauma, etc. One thing I really like is their arc around faith - in the books, Kaz is dismissive of Inej's faith in ways that often feel really shitty and I like that he learns to be more respectful of it. It's very much linked to hope/survival ; Inej keeps this token from her parents and she hopes to find them again ; Kaz tells her it's no use and she'll survive better if she gives up. He believes Alina is a fake, while Inej wants to believe that myths can come true and there is hope for good things in the world. Kaz comes to accept that Alina is the real deal and, out of respect for Inej's faith, to stop pursuing her. I loved the bit about Inej struggling to kill as well - it's the dilemma of what her survival and that of the people she really cares about are worth in such a shitty world - her compassion is a good part of her but so is her survival instinct, and that's the part Kaz represents - that even after she's been through hell, broken in unfathomable ways, even if she gave up all hope and faith in the world, even she becomes dangerous and ruthless to survive, she will still deserve dignity, and to be treated better. And meanwhile she is willing to break her principles, which she holds so dearly, to save him, when he's never had anyone who cared for him like that - enough to keep him alive. That bit in the church !!!!! God !!!!!! Bye !!!!!!! And then him basically calling her his own version of a Saint, that he doesn't believe in miracles but he does believe in her !!! It's very emblematic of their whole arc ; he empowers her to survive in a ruthless world and loves her at her most dangerous ; but he loves her laugh too, he finds her a ship and her parents, he honors her capacity for love and hope even when he can't share it. And she sees that he's capable of doing better, that he's worth caring for. This whole thing kills me honestly and I can't wait to see where they take this next. I'm not mad they're a bit more soft and obvious than in the books, Kaz would just have come across as an an asshole otherwise.

- That said, there are bits of how they introduced their backstories I don't like. I get that making it so Inej was still tied to the Menagerie gave them a very powerful reason to want to kidnap Alina beyond greed so that they wouldn't look like very shitty people. But in the books Inej is terrified by the idea of simply seeing Heleen or the Menagerie and the way they have her interact with her feels weirdly casual and dismissive of her trauma. Also, in the books, the fact that Kaz had to convince Per Haskell to buy Inej's contract through a lot of effort, that he wasn't the one holding that above her head either, made the power dynamics more palatable. I especially disliked the scene where Kaz says he won't free other girls because just Inej is special, it makes him look like he has the power but he's just too much of a callous asshole to do it, and that he just freed Inej because he liked her which is absolutely not what their relationship is about at the start, it's a lot more about seeing Inej's dangerous side behind a facade of powerlessness and relating to her, in a sense, and this scene made it all feel cheap.

- Also, what was that about Inej having a brother ? Not a fan of that either. I'm afraid they're going to make her story all about finding what happened to him, and that's 1) too on the nose similar to Kaz's story and 2) it kind of cheapens her own arc, a female character realizing that what was done to her was wrong, reclaiming her own power and dignity and then making sure it doesn't happen to anybody else, harnessing her personal experience to save strangers, that's so powerful - making it about a family member at first, especially if it's about revenge, it's so much more simplistic and unoriginal and the perspective really annoys me.

- Also not a fan of Per Haskell not being there because he's a very important part of Kaz's evolution, so I hope he shows up eventually - and the way they introduced Pekka Rollins was kind of like...weird and out of place. I just found the Crows' introduction scenes stilted and not as cool as they should have been - well, Jesper and Inej were very cool, but we needed to see Kaz in action first, we needed to see why he's such a menace before we see him flounder later, and I just...I don't know exactly but it didn't work for me. Also this is a very petty thing but I wasn't crazy about the Ketterdam sets, I know this is probably a budget thing but in my head it looked like this incredible mix of Amsterdam and Venice - specific locations in the book directly remind me of parts of Amsterdam I know very well - and instead what we got felt like this very generic London-ish fantasy setting....so boring. Also a lot of scenes that felt to exposition-y. I don't mind that Kaz was a bit softer than in the books, like many people have said some things work in books and don't work on a screen, and you need to make the character's inner dynamics more explicit. But I do agree that, at the same time, he should have been more ruthless towards people outside of his group. Loved that scene where he faces the Inferni though, and how well they illustrated his disability and aversion to touch.

- I don't have that much to say about Nina and Matthias ; I'm still not super sold on the whole 'haha misogyny!' thing and I dislike that so much of Matthias' change of heart relies on the fact that he finds Nina hot. But I did think that the actors had enough chemistry to make their scenes together interesting and cute ; I loved the waffle scene. Even though it's disappointing that they didn't find an actress who was more clearly plus size for Nina, I still think Danielle does a good job bringing her bold, unapologetic energy. I'm really looking forward to seeing the Crows as a whole team.

So yeah, even though the season didn't feel like a perfect, coherent whole, it was just a lot of fun and I really hope they get renewed. In particular I feel like tying the first trilogy to the Crows' story could create such interesting parallels in terms of themes, about power, the cost of survival, hope, trauma, etc etc

[sebastianshaw]

OPINION:  Haven seems like a character who would have been SO GOOD for redemption arc? She has all the right setup going. She's a very well-intentioned villain to start, she's being misled by a greater evil, and she never harms the heroes and in fact heals one. Murdering millions of people is really NOT something you can come back from morally, of course, but from a writing perspective that's a good way to motivate her, to keep trying to make up for something that can't be made up for. And like...Magneto kills thousands of people in Fatal Attractions, he's gotten to be anywhere from morally ambiguous to heroic, we've got Apocalypse as a "not entirely bad" figure lately, I feel like Haven is as valid a choice as them, especially since she immediately was like SOMEONE STOP THIS THING when she did (too late) learn the truth. And like...the Adversary was talking in Haven’s head for 20 years, I don’t see how that’s different from someone with, say, schizophrenia who hears voices for 20 years telling them to do something horrible. It’s still WRONG for them to do it, but we understand that it’s different than if they decided to do so in their right mind. If having an evil demonic god in your body and mind for 20 years is not mitigating circumstances, what is? There have been redeemed villains who had far less to justify their actions.  I just feel like she had so much potential and was so interesting, and was treated with such racism and misogyny it’s hard not to want better for her even if she did such genuinely awful things (which, since they’re all off-panel against people we don’t know and never see, is also hard for me as a reader to hold against her as much as is probably deserved in-universe) Jay and Miles said it felt like something Joss Whedon wrote, and my jaw dropped because like...way back when I started watching Angel after finishing Buffy (this was alllll the way back in my college days) I got to the episode where Cordelia and other women get deadly demon-pregnant as a punishment for sex and I stopped watching it there because the whole thing felt so misogynistic to me so YEAH.

[veliseraptor]

I saw somewhere an idea that Loki TV should play with comics and have 2012!Loki jumping to a dimension and meeting his old evil self, so Loki would be both the protagonist and antagonist of his own show. I love the idea but I'm not familiar with comics so I don't know what/how evil Loki got but I think you do? How do you think post-Avenger Loki would react to seeing himself old, bitter and evil (I heard he was madness and destruction)? Self-reflect or laugh "so this is how it is"?

Oh, I really hope they don’t do it. And I say this as someone who is a really big fan of that storyline in comics. I just don’t think it makes as much sense in the MCU, or at least couldn’t be done as well.

The reason that storyline worked as well as it did in the comics is twofold: one is the way that it is a commentary on the nature of superhero comics and how much they resist character development - how much they tend to over time bend a character back into an “original” mode (in Loki’s case, a major Thor antagonist). If you want to read 8000 words about this, it’s here; for brevity’s sake I’ll just quote from my conclusion:

In my notes for this article, I wrote “can people change? Not in comics!” As a rule, that is true. In more recent years classic villains have been allowed to grow more complex and move out of their traditional roles – Magneto and Emma Frost, mentioned above, fit that category, though both have a longer history of sympathetic portrayal than Loki. However, the general rule over the nearly sixty years of Marvel publishing history is that characters fit a certain mold and will return to that mold.

Writing from within those limits, Gillen and Ewing confront them, challenge them, and draw attention to them. Invocations of story and storytelling, the power of writing both literal and figurative, draw attention to the fictional status of the characters, who are, furthermore, aware of the conventions of their genre and acting against – or with – them. Loki in Journey Into Mystery attempts to tear out the captions to stop his nightmare; Loki in Agent of Asgard narrates in mythological, Eddaic mode to capture the essence of the gods. Narrative, and the awareness of narrative, drives them both.

The MCU doesn’t have that same force - while it has its problems with character development, it doesn’t have the same history or weight behind them. 

The second problem, though - and this is actually my bigger problem, because even without that specific thematic resonance you could probably still tell a good story - is that that particular story relies on Loki being in a specific place in his redemption arc. He is, at that point, well on the road to Working On Being a Good Person, and genuinely believing that he’s making progress and doing pretty good at it. That’s what makes the confrontation with his evil alter ego (who is...an interesting figure in his own right, but that interesting part would probably get lost in translation because it is very ~comics!~ in a way I think general audiences would be reluctant to accept*) so potent: it’s Loki thinking he’s doing better, trying to do better, suddenly being faced with his worst fears for himself. 

The Loki TV series is apparently taking Loki from the point in Avengers after he’s been beaten, before going to Asgard. That isn’t a Loki who is in any way interested in trying to be or do better. That is a Loki at his lowest point, angry and bitter and lashing out at the world around him. That Loki, facing another (even nastier) Loki...it’s a very different dynamic, and without so much of that contrast, I don’t think as compelling of one. Because I do think Loki would just be like “yep, that tracks.” And maybe there would be conflict, but it would be much more likely to be the “I want something that you also want” type of conflict than the “holy shit, this isn’t what I want to be, also our desires are fundamentally incompatible with each other” type of conflict.

And that’s just not, at least for me personally, as interesting.

(YMMV, of course. But I tend to think when Loki is confronting himself as his own worst enemy, the more contrast between the two versions, the more potent the conflict and the more interesting the potential.)

Also I just trust Al Ewing and Kieron Gillen about 500x more than I trust anyone at Disney, so there’s that, too.

---

*To give you the shortest possible explanation - it is an alternate timeline Loki who went through his full redemption arc, realized that no one cared he had changed, went full evil but kind of agreeably so to recreate the status quo with Asgard where everything was back to “normal” (evil Loki, hero Thor fighting him), and then jumped timelines to try to bring up the timeline of his going dark, but also possibly to make a better timeline, it’s complicated. Maybe that was accidental, maybe not? 

Again, it’s very ~comics!~ and therefore I don’t think something that Disney would be likely to put in a TV series for general audiences. They’ve done some weird stuff now, but really nothing that weird.

And if they just made it “Loki went evil because reasons” then that kind of loses all the interesting parts of that Loki as a character, imo.

[moranegative-blog]

Most of the time, when you have a sympathetic or anti-villain, they have a goal, and then their struggle is about what they do to achieve that goal. That’s part of where the sympathy comes in, the goal is something that’s understandable if not downright noble. And where the villainy comes in is that they’re willing to stoop to immoral methods to get the job done. Like take Killmonger, who wants to put an end to the suffering and mistreatment of Black people, but is willing to turn Wakanda into a conquering nation in order to do that. Or Magneto, who wants to prevent the extinction of mutants, but is willing to kill off the other humans instead. Their emotional conflict stems from the fact that they know these methods are not good things to do, but they also don’t see a better way of legitimately accomplishing their goals. So they do them anyway, at the expense of their conscience. 

It’s not that they aren’t fallible or selfish, and you can still make a case for characters like this not seeing better ways because of personal conceit or pessimism or an additional desire to get revenge or an ultimate lack of sufficient concern for the damage being done, or other obvious flaws. But the general idea is that they want to accomplish something that will ultimately be good. 

Kylo Ren, though, doesn’t really articulate anything like this. He doesn’t feel conflicted about the methods he’s had to use in order to accomplish an important goal he’s deemed worthy of the cost, or else presumably he’d try and use his reasoning to sway Rey over to his side at some point, and thereby illuminate a greater design to his actions. So, it seems his internal feelings of conflict are what is driving him to do terrible things. He kills his father because he thinks that will make him feel less conflicted, that it will let him just accept being on the Dark Side. But why is he on the Dark Side? Because he’s decided that’s where he has to be, after Luke’s rejection. What good, though, does he think he can accomplish on the Dark Side? Not much, going off of his admission to Rey that he thinks he’s a monster. The dude doesn’t misguidedly believe that the First Order is really doing the galaxy any good (which would be messed up and obviously incorrect, but at least put him on the same ground as Anakin). The FO’s just another means to his own personal ends. And his own ends are… murdering people until it resolves his internal conflict. 

In other words, he kills people because he hopes killing will make him feel better. It’s almost the opposite of the usual MO for this kind of villain, where he kills people despite knowing that it will make him feel awful.  

To my mind that really does put him more in the company of bad guys who aren’t suited to believable redemption arcs or compelling sympathy. He already vastly prioritizes himself over everyone else, or else, he wouldn’t be party to so much death in pursuit of personal equilibrium. It’s what people are referring to when they call him disturbingly entitled. Which is why I’m having such a hard time actually seeing him as anything much deeper than a tragedy. He doesn’t have a goal or drive I can sympathize with. Just a list of bad things that have happened to him, and then a list of crimes he’s committed because... being a victim makes you into a villain, I guess. Wow. What a hot take.

And the narrative doesn’t really seem to acknowledge that he’s been party to the actual deaths of people. Like, the tone of TLJ’s ending treats his conflict with Rey almost purely as a matter of ideological differences, even though Kylo Ren’s decision to murder everyone in the Resistance is what is creating the tension of the final act. But while it’s easy to view death as an abstract in the sense of this being fiction, in-universe, he has killed a ton of people and abetted the deaths of a whoooole lot more. And his conflict doesn’t even seem to stem from that. He hesitates to kill his own loving mother, but he still is also willing to just let her die so long as he doesn’t have to pull the trigger himself. And with everyone else, he’s a-okay with murder and expresses zero remorse. His conflict is discussed, but it seems like a totally personal thing, revolving around his concept of identity and his immediate relationships. Not something stemming from remorse or grief over being party to terrible acts. He doesn’t seem to regret being a monster, he seems to regret that monsters don’t get to have moms and girlfriends. 

I mean, on the one hand, if he was a character in a story with different stakes and collateral damage, then I feel like I would absolutely sympathize a lot more with his internal conflict and identity crisis. If he wasn’t killing other people over it, then yeah. Sure. Kylo Ren the radicalized victim of a cult would make for an interesting character in a lower-stakes television drama or something. Or maybe an episode of Law & Order about him killing his father. 

But that’s not the story he’s in. The story he’s in has shit like the destruction of the Hosnian System. He has committed war crimes, and he hasn’t even gone ‘I’m trying to destroy the Force to free the universe from endless cycles of conflict for once and for all’ or some shit like that. Nothing he’s trying to accomplish is of a scale even remotely equivalent to his crimes. It’s all because of his personal drama. 

This is a negative and critical post but I’m not actually trying to be spiteful, here. I was willing to give the character a chance because I like a good conflicted villain. But bad things happening to him is just one single component of that, and arguably less important than another, which is a visible streak of nobility or compassion or moral fortitude. A goal, a vision, a genuinely good intention even if it’s been warped somehow by trauma or has forced him to make difficult decisions. TLJ is basically trying to take a character with a backstory that’s like a less sad version of Harry Potter’s (he got creeped on by the obsessive magical bad guy but his parents didn’t even die before he started personally killing them), and trying to juxtapose it against a body count that would make The Joker blush. And Rey’s supposed to play Beauty and the Beast with this guy who literally tries to shoot her out of the sky when she refuses to let him kill all her friends?

Nope. Nooope. I don’t care how much ‘light’ she senses in him, I sincerely do not. I need to see it, from the audience, in some way that makes me think this guy is not going to be perpetually at risk of murdering everyone the next time things go south for him. Without that, then even the saddest backstory is just tragedy, not grounds for any kind of turn-around or redemption arc.

[salarta]

Comic Book Fandom Problem: Character Competition and Role/Panel Hoarding

At this point, I’m both a little experienced but still relatively new when it comes to comic book issues. I only really got into any comics consistently after I discovered Polaris from X-Men. I’ve been reading stuff with her since 2009, but it’s sporadic for her to get use.

In that time, I’ve noticed a lot of specific overall problems with “hardcore” comic book culture. This post is about the specific problem of “panel hoarding” and treating character use and presence like some kind of competition.

At its base, it goes to fanboy one-upsmanship. It’s the “my favorite superhero can beat your favorite superhero” thinking. A good example is how Frank Miller basically made Dark Knight Returns all about how great Batman supposedly is, to a point where Superman was written poorly so Batman could mop the floor with him.

Let’s really look at this. Why do these characters have to fight at all? If they fight, why does one have to be written poorly for the sake of the other? Why can’t a fight between them give both characters admirable qualities, with the loser losing the fight for perfectly good reasons?

When you get to the bottom of this stuff, this sort of behavior isn’t merely about fandom or wanting good exciting stories. This is ultimately about dominance and power. The people who insist their favorite character has to be on top and win everything are saying it cause they want their favorite character to be in a dominant position, and their fandom, and themselves, along with the character. It’s not really about the character. It’s not about good stories. It’s all about ego.

One personal example. In Secret Wars House of M, Polaris and Quicksilver fought. Lorna was depicted in that as a character that scared Pietro with her power, with Pietro only winning because of a surprise attack on Lorna not from Pietro. I didn’t like that either. Pietro was depicted very poorly to make Lorna look better.

This brand “dominance fight” was not needed. It’s a staple of comic books that some people blinded by egotistical desires think is a good thing. It’s not. Poor writing is poor writing, and everyone loses. With writing that treats both characters well, we could have seen some really interesting nuance to their genuine points of view. We could have seen some creativity for use of powers. Instead, Quicksilver was a bad caricature of himself, and that just pisses off fans of the character.

Another example. X-Men Blue recently had Polaris and Havok fight. I saw quite a few people liked that, and were excited to see Polaris beat Havok in that scenario. I wasn’t. I’m a Polaris fan. I consider her my absolute favorite character right now in anything. I wasn’t happy about Lorna interacting with Havok in any sense, including this sort of thing.

I have very detailed reasons, tied to Polaris’ character history, for why I don’t want her interacting with Havok. I won’t go into them here. It’s a very specific and special issue tied only to Havok. My point here is, this “dominance fight” wasn’t needed either. We could’ve had panels that focused on something entirely different. Lorna could have had an argument with Emma about mutants, for example.

Now, for a problem that’s not the same as above but closely connected: panel/role hoarding.

Comic books have a loooooot of characters available. Most characters are heavily underused in favor of ones that have been heavily promoted across decades. Here’s the problem: characters that can fit a niche are often ignored in favor of inserting those traits into “popular” characters where they don’t belong.

Sometimes, fans of a character think only their character can fit a role. Or, out of desperation to either get their favorite into a prime position or keep them there, fans will refuse to acknowledge other characters having any kind of meaningful stake in a storyline or event. They may even badmouth and try to diminish the character’s value to make that happen.

This is another dominance play. This is all ego and selfishness talking, and it’s a problem specific to comic books.

The “logic” of this attitude is that if you let other characters occupy the same or similar role, or have panel time too, that hurts your favorite character. That “undermines” your favorite character’s “standing” in the role and supposedly keeps them from getting much use.

This “logic” is a huge mistake. Even when taking on the same role, two characters are not going to think and behave the exact same way. They will have disagreements. They will have nuance. In some cases, the base role could split into more than one direction. If you have only one person in the role, you either lose all except one direction, or the one character allowed to have the role becomes a disgusting mess of poor characterization that ends up looking terrible to most people.

But when you acknowledge other characters’ worth and let them be involved? Your favorite character actually benefits. Maybe you lose some panel time for the character. Sure. The lost panel time is more than made up for by much better writing. The two (or more) characters can interact, develop associations, common ground. In the future, the already established connection can lead to amazing new stories that never would have been possible without the connection.

For this example, I have Scarlet Witch.

Brevoort at Marvel said a lot of negative things about Polaris several years ago. They seemed to be mainly fueled by the idea that Magneto can have only one daughter, and at the time, he wanted that sole daughter to be Scarlet Witch.

This was a mistake. There is a lot of interest in the idea of Polaris and Scarlet Witch spending time together as sisters. They’ve both dealt with mental issues. Lorna suffered from M-Day, and Wanda has yet to have a redemption arc/story that most X-Men fans accept. They would have common ground of being Magneto’s daughters, but that connection makes them closer and gives them opportunities to have interesting stories together. Brevoort had the belief that only one daughter can exist, because his focus was exclusively on the role of “Magneto’s daughter,” as if it’s a coveted title only one can have. It blinded him to what they can accomplish together because they both have the same role.

Later, after Marvel forced a retcon that made Scarlet Witch (and Quicksilver) no longer Magneto’s daughter, they tried to do a solo comic book for her. The book failed. Its main reason for failing was because Marvel had severed most of her meaningful relationships - including with Magneto and Polaris. Some thought that completely separating her from those relationships would be good for her prestige, but it wasn’t. Losing those relationships denied her the chance to interact with characters that could show her best qualities.

Same applies to any role situation. If you’re a real fan of a character, you want what’s best for the character. What’s best for the character is good writing, not oodles of appearances that all make the character look horrible just for the sake of exposure. If some panel time has to be sacrificed to get good writing, then so be it.

Comic book fandom is rife with these toxic attitudes. There are ways of doing things so ingrained that some fans mistakenly think they have to go along with the flow, or that what they know is a “tradition” that must be upheld. Some have also become so accustomed to those attitudes that it’s become a deeply ingrained part of who they are. They don’t want to break those habits and may refuse to see anything wrong with them.

But seeing the problem is the first step to better comics fandom, and eventually better comics as a whole.

[sebastianshaw]

And I’m sure Snowbird getting a happy ending had nothing to do with her being a blonde white woman and Haven being a dark skinned woc

I don’t think it was THE reason, but I would not rule it out as a contributing factor.

The major reason is that Snowbird is a hero and a major character, whereas Haven was an extremely minor character and a villain. So it’s pretty standard in that regard for Snowbird to get a happy ending, and Haven not to. Especially considering that, while Snowbird was not a character that “belonged” to anyone in particuliar, Haven was the creation of DeMatteis and when he left the book, so did she. That’s why her story just ENDS so abruptly after her confrontation with Charles, even though it seems like it should just be getting starting---her creator took off, and the new writer wasn’t interested in her.

She pops back up in the annual a year or two later to die, and I strongly suspect this was due to readers writing in and asking what happened to her; I can’t confirm this for fact, but TV Tropes claimed that fans actually refused to root against her because she was so sympathetic and benevolent, so I imagine a lot of them wanted to know where she went and this was to get them to shut up.

(It kind of reminds me of when this webcomic writer wrote a character he meant as despicable and twisted, and she was, but she was also way more deep and interesting than the 2D mouthpieces the protagonists were, so fans kept asking when she’d come back. He got so fed up he drew her dying in a gross and humiliating way. So yeah, if people were indeed asking “what happened to Haven and her evil possessed fetus?” and writing her dying in the mud giving birth while a goddess victim-blames her was the response...yeah. Again I cannot be for sure this is what happened, it’s just a GUESS.)

But yeah the big reason is Snowbird is a heroine and important, Haven was a flash-in-the-pan villain that only one writer wanted to write and had to be gotten out of the way when someone new came in. Nothing deeper than that. But the WAY that Haven’s story played out, especially compared to Snowbird’s...that’s got a lot of sexism and quite potentially racism there, yeah. So um, let’s get into that. Under a cut for length because I doubt people following a Shaw blog for Shaw want to see a bunch of non-Shaw rambling.

Haven’s story, as I have written about MANY times on her blog, is REALLY UNCOMFY in its sexism, racism, and xenophobia. Let me say, I do not think DeMatteis intended this. He writes Haven as a very kind, well-intentioned person even at her worst, and I happen to know he has a genuine real-life interest in Indian spirituality, which I think is definitely what inspired her. Unfortunately, these good intentions didn’t stop Unfortunate Implications galore: - Our first Indian/Hindu/Zoroastrian character is not only a villain, her “evil” philosophy is taken directly from real-world Hindu beliefs - She is opposed by a team comprised ENTIRELY of white people who work for the US government who scoff at those beliefs and refer to them as “New Age” (aka a white hippie movement that appropriated a lot of actual Hindu ideas but certainly did not invent it!) - The US government says she’s a terrorist. Polaris raises doubts, because Haven’s actions at that point have been nothing but benevolent (she saved Polaris) whereas the same government making these accusations has been malevolent (the people trying to kill/capture Polaris were US agents, despite Polaris working for the government, who attacked her because she had the same energy signal as Magneto) When they go to see Haven in person, she’s preaching peace between humans and mutants. Havok opens fire on her---so basically, a law enforcement officer shooting without warning at an unarmed WOC who isn’t doing anything threatening and they don’t even know has superpowers yet--and Haven has to hit the deck. Despite her own great power that we later learn she has, she never retaliates. But we find out that yes, actually, everything the government said about her is true, she’s leading a terrorist death-cult, and so it’s a-okay that our white government cop FIRED A FUCKING PLASMA BURST AT HER WHEN SHE WAS JUST STANDING THERE. The moral of her story is seriously “this brown woman with a funny religion is a terrorist because the government said so, no matter how nice and gentle she seems, and thus any excessive force against her was definitely justified even if we didn’t know that at the time” like it’s CHILLING. - Haven herself actually has very questionable agency in all this. She’s actually been pregnant for twenty years; her unborn child is permanently in the first trimester and possessed by the powerful demon known as The Adversary (which doesn’t make sense timeline-wise, but I have no doubt this thing can time travel, its entire point is to fuck the rules of universal order) We don’t know exactly how much it can influence her or perhaps even control her, but we do know it’s been talking in her head from 20 years and came on at a time she was REALLY messed up and vulnerable, and manipulated her at the least. I personally think it probably was controlling or influencing her at a very deep subtle level, but that’s just my interpretation. At the least though, again, talking in her head for 20 years, that’s the supernatural equivalent of schizophrenia and we wouldn’t blame her for THAT, right? - Oh, and about it appearing when she was at her lowest, most vulnerable point? Know why she was at her lowest, most vulnerable point just when she happened to be pregnant? Haven’s story is she was born extremely rich but was so passionate about using her privilege to help the poor that she ran away from her parents---philanthropists themselves, but who wanted to protect her from the outside world too---to go work directly in the streets, bathing lepers and cradling dying babies. She got her name “Haven” because she used her wealth to renovate a children’s hospital of the same name, I’m serious. She was literally a fucking SAINT. And then she fell in love with a man, and he used her, knocked her up, and ran off. She was DEEPLY ashamed and berated herself not only for her loss of “purity” but also for being “selfish” and forgetting the children. This is...so sad, and so DEEPLY entrenched in how women, ESPECIALLY women of color in a colonized culture, are considered “selfish” and “evil” if they don’t utterly sacrifice themselves 24/7 to care for others and dare have wants/needs of their own. So she fell into this deep despair and that’s when her fetus starts talking to her and filling her head with twisted lies that preyed on both her devout spirituality and her desire to help others.

There is no more sympathetic villain setup POSSIBLE, you’d think Haven would be a SHOE-IN for a redemption arc or at least being saved from her own “child”, but she gets neither. She dies alone in the mud, having only now realized as the birth is coming just what it is she’s about the bring into the world. Roma, the Omniversal Guardian Goddess and eternal foe of the Adversary, appears to watch. Haven begs her, not to save her own life but to stop the Adversary from the terrible things it’s going to do to the world. To her last breath, her concern is others. And Roma tells her “I would weep for you, but you brought this on yourself.” So basically, Haven, who is the most wonderful person in the world and who VERY much fits expected gender roles (gentle, maternal, loving, non-violent even when attacked, long hair, pink and purple flowing clothes, literally SPARKLES) has sex ONE TIME and she’s punished for it in the worst fucking way while the guy who impregnated her gets off scott-free. It’s just...it’s the worst narrative, in terms of sexism AND racism AND just in general. That’s not even getting into, say, the really uncomfy way her meeting with Xavier is handled, eesh. Compare, Snowbird. She’s actually far LESS the “perfect” woman than Haven is, she’s very cold and aloof and she even contemplates LETTING HER SON DIE so that her ties with mortality will be severed and she can join her divine family in paradise. But she had that son within the confines of MARRIAGE to a mortal man, and she only got married after her duties were done, unlike Haven on both counts. And her loss, and the loss of her child, are deeply mourned by those around her, she has a very dignified and beautiful funeral with Snow White style glass coffins, and we see the spirits of herself, her husband, and her child all ascend to the Inua paradise together, the gods having decided to let them in even though mortals have never been allowed before. She gets divine exception, Haven gets divine condemnation. She gets a beautiful funeral surrounded by loved ones, Haven’s corpse is probably still rotting in the jungle and her brother likely still has no idea what happened to her. To be clear I in no way resent Snowbird for her better treatment in a similiar story, I like Snowbird, but it is very disparate in how differently these seemingly similar situations---possessed baby and such---were handled, and the specific ways in which Haven’s were handled so badly ARE very much the product of bigotry that Snowbird didn’t suffer in part due to her being a white or white-coded character (in addition to being, again, a heroine and a major character, which helped her a lot too) Also, is it just me or is Marvel like...weird around childbirth/babies/motherhood and mixing that with demons/evil spirits/possession? Because in that same vein we’ve also got Madelyne Pryor and Wanda Maximoff who also go through demonic possession that’s related in some way to being mothers of babies. That’s a very strange pattern to have and something’s going on there.   As a note, it bugs me that Snowbird’s human disguise as “Anne McKenzie” is a BLONDE WHITE WOMAN. Like, yes, her human father was white, but her mother Nelvanna is one of the Inua, the ancient gods of Canada from LONG before white people showed up and WHO LOOK LIKE FIRST NATIONS PEOPLE, Snowbird herself is constantly emphasized as a child of these lands, she is literally magically BOUND to these lands and can’t leave them without weakening and dying, she was raised by an indigenous shaman, and she can only turn into animals that are INDIGENOUS to Canada. She is very unsubtly the embodiment of pre-colonial Canada, so it’s just...asinine to me her human form is that of a colonizer. I get they probably didn’t think further than “let’s give her human form blonde hair so it’s recognizably her” but like, that’s the problem, they didn’t THINK. Also I feel like her being mixed would really thematically fit her, since a strong part of her story was struggling between her divine and human heritage and being forced to try to “pick a side” which is something I’ve heard (I’m white) that a lot of irl mixed people deal with. It just would make more SENSE.

[faithful-grigori]

”#look the 90’s X Men is getting a continuation, #i just think it would be cool, #if x men evolution also got a sequel series following what Frank Paur Steven E Gordon and the others planned, #b4 the network decided to cancel, #psylocke and emma frost were going to make appearances, #we would have witnessed and mourned Jean Grey’s transformation into the Phoenix, #we could have had ex-Brotherhood + S.H.I.E.L.D. shenanigans, #SCOTT x ROGUE, #aka, #scogue, #otp: sensory deprivation, #cyclops x rogue, #would have become officially canon. #Also would have been interesting to see how a genuine Magneto redemption arc would have happened. #considering all the garbage he indirectly and directly put everyone through, #ah well, #guess that’s what AU’s are for”