#daredevil discourse

[pagemurdockandnelson]

Want to talk about some parallels between the original Daredevil and Born Again, for a second.

I think comparing these two instances really showcases the differences in writing between the two shows.

Namely, WHY did Muse's nose just start randomly bleeding in the middle of his therapy session? He has no previous injury and no illness that would explain it. At no point in the narrative do they explain to us as the audience why it might have happened.

Similarly, in season 3 of the Netflix show, Karen Page's nose starts bleeding in front of her family and the local sheriff, but it was because she had just been snorting coke with her boyfriend in the previous scene. There's an established reason for it, in-universe. And the sheriff reacts, not with concern, but with irritation. That tells us, the audience, that the people around her know about her drug habits and they're sick of them. It's written into the scene because it's character driven and it makes sense.

When Muse starts bleeding randomly, it's not to share with us about his character. It only exists because the writers wanted to have him paint with blood in the scene. It's another writing shortcut, which this show has been full of. They put it in there just because it would be "cool" visual, not because it makes sense in the narrative.

[goldenlikedayl1ght]

hi tumblr it’s me danny

i’m pretty high right now (sorry) and let me tell y’all.

i do not give a fuck about daredevil discourse

i love you karen page, matt is in fact blind, and YES realistically matt’s ‘no killing’ thing is ruined by the fact he’s given many head injuries but i beg you to remember that this is a television show, a marvel one at that, and YES he’s a bad friend to his friends in the seasons! but matt’s whole thing is a balance of justice and personal freedom !!!!

just let me give him a kiss.

and maybe her a kiss too.

also send me matt asks if you’re feeling silly literally about anything and my high ass will respond. smooches!!!!

[pagemurdockandnelson]

I wish entertainment media would realize you don't HAVE to always rely on CGI. You don't have to try to impress us with fancy things flying all over the screen, like we're toddlers who're going to change the channel if you're not constantly jingling keys in our face. It's never going to look real.

I would have been happy to see Matt throw his grapple hook and then they show Muse's reaction as it hits the back of his shoulder, and then he's dragged. My brain can understand the rest. I really didn't need the incredibly goofy "exploding out of his shoulder as it goes straight through" that was not at all realistic, and also cuts the horror of the scene that would have been pressed into our brains if you did it with a little practical effect. Which is why fight scenes looked so awesome in the Netflix Daredevil show.

With so much of DDBA I just shake my head and say, "They did that ten years ago, why did it look better then..."

DAREDEVIL 1.09: Speak of the Devil DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN 1.07: Art for Art’s Sake

[hellscupboards]

i know there's gonna be new or returning fans on the dash investing in the new show and im letting y'all know now that Foggy Nelson the Heart and Soul of Daredevil is not to be slandered. This is me firing 2 gunshots into the air to keep the tourists scared. Get off my lawn with your Foggy hate you're not welcome here

[thehumdai]

Real talk time, Kastle fam: how likely do we think it is that we will get any progression in Frank/Karen’s relationship in DDBA S2 and/or The Punisher special? A friend of mine asked why I thought Kastle was such an interesting dynamic and it got me thinking (planning to make a huge post about why Kastle is so good sometime in the future).

Give me your theories, thoughts, feelings, 5 page-double spaced-MLA format-style essays. I want it all.

My nagging feeling is that they have acknowledged Frank and Karen’s connection but will now leave it at that and (for some reason) fully lean into Matt/Karen. While I think it’s not as likely, Kastle’s last scene could also be interpreted as a goodbye/bookend for their relationship. Karen was interested in what Matt heard in Frank’s heartbeat, but she told Matt in the next breath that her heart did the same thing when she saw Matt again. I know a lot of people want to pretend that moment didn’t happen, but it did. At best, she loves both of them.

Jon and Deborah’s chemistry is literally lightning in a bottle. Nobody foresaw how good these two characters would be together and how fucking great their dynamic is. I’m just afraid it’s going to be wasted in service of Matt and Karen’s relationship (as an aside, I’m a diehard Claire/Matt shipper and that boat has been dead in the water for a long time).

What do you guys think?

[shehungthemoon]

My last poll results are actually just confusing me more so HERE (forgot the other option oops. Lmk in the comments!)

second fav poll

[pagemurdockandnelson]

Sigh! I'm reading so much truth on tumblr today. I feel like this post should be making the rounds again.

Some people love Matt and want him to be miserable, alone, and suffering.

Others love Matt, and they love a sad Matt, but they also want him to be happy.

Women? Yes!

Adrenaline. Blood. Violence? They are essential!

However, there is a small group that understands Matt has a heart that beats outside of his chest (corny, I know).

These Daredevil fans appreciate Foggy and understand that without him, Matt would never be the person he is.

Matt genuinely smiles when he’s with Foggy, and he feels comfortable enough to go without his glasses in his presence.

It's an adorable tiny fandom that faces a lot of challenges.

And this tiny fandom is where I fit in.

It's incredibly frustrating to wait for the creators of both the comics and the series to do the bare minimum and keep Foggy safe and alive. And reading a comic only to encounter a cliffhanger is so distressing too.

Foggy dies. Then he lives. But he dies again. After that, he's gone. They break the friendship. And then Foggy dies once more. He eventually comes back, but now with a different law partner...

Is it too much to ask for Nelson and Murdock to return to being... Nelson and Murdock?

Expecting the series creators to respect Matt's human side, respect his story, and not kill off Foggy is also torture. Sometimes, it makes me wish Foggy had never returned to the series at all.

Expecting fans to see Foggy as an essential element and to respect and love him like Matt does is tiring and sometimes frustrating too.

Reading posts from people who love Matt; the hot Matt, babygirl Matt, lonely Matt, etc... but hate the core, the core of Matt and Daredevil is a little disappointing, too. Understandable, but still disappointing.

So, yes, there's a teensy fandom within the larger Daredevil fandom dedicated to Foggy Nelson. This little fandom will never die, even if Foggy does.

He may die, but he will always come back... and then he might die again, and finally, he will live again...

But Foggy is an angel and angels don't die. (corny corny, I know)

[pastafossa]

Pasta! Pasta! Pasta! I think you mentioned that you were currently reading through Daredevil comics. Is there any you recommend as a must read?

I DID! I've gone through a decent amount of runs now, working my way through the Big Rec'd arcs, and it is wild to see all these bits and pieces that I recognize as contributing to the show that really got my love for Matt started, there's some really good shit here.

I'd say Frank Miller's classic The Man Without Fear, and Born Again runs are the biggest Must Read! Having read through some of the arcs that came out before Miller's runs, I get now why people say Miller changed the game with Daredevil. These runs are foundational to all of our modern depictions of Matt, and a huge part of Daredevil's history and development. Miller's arcs aren't necessarily my favorites in terms of pure enjoyment, but they're top of the list because you just get so much of who modern Matt and Daredevil is, distilled down into its purest form.

The Brian Michael Bendis + Alex Maleev run is so gut-wrenching (and somewhat heartbreaking, but what else is new with Matt) in a stunning way, and fleshes out the world around Matt so gd well. The tonal darkness Netflix pulled a lot of its vibe from is on full display, and I loved the importance of characters like Ben Urich. I can see how this run inspired writers that came after, this was another foundational run for Matt. (I'd continue with Brubaker's run immediately after this since it continues the story!)

I know Matt's whole thing is depression, but I feel like Mark Waid's run was a really solid amalgamation of Matt's lighter tone earlier on and the more serious vibe he gets later. This is both a fun read and a solid one, allowing us to kind of see a bit more of what Matt's like when his life's not spiraling from tragedy to tragedy even if he's still taking things seriously when necessary. And damn was this a breath of fresh air. It's on my Must Read list because what's the point of following Matt if we never get to see him happy? This might be my personal enjoyment favorite.

Kevin Smith's Guardian Devil run, not necessarily because I think it's the best but because we really dig into Matt's catholicism here in a way that ends up influencing a lot of what comes later. Must Read for this take alone, since Matt's faith has become a big part of who he is as a character, even if parts of this run are a bit rough (there is sometimes waaay too much text on the page, which from what I understand Smith has acknowledged).

That's what I've got so far! I still have a TON on my list I want to get to (Soule's the next one I'm eyeing) before fully diving into Chip Zdarsky's current run (which I am very excited about), but these are the Big Reads that I think give an excellent sense of who Matt is as we understand him, his history, and how he's developed over the decades. ❤️

[the-gamling-dog]

very cathartic to watch the Punisher murder a bunch of shitlurk dirty cops who think they should be allowed to do violence to whoever Just Cuz.

the same kind of fucking cowards who wear his patch while rousting the poor, the sick, and the unarmed.

what these idolaters fail to realise is that their idol thinks that legacy cops who treat the badge as membership in "the biggest gang" are just as worthy of immediate and undignified death as all the mafiosi and sex traffickers Mr Castle usually deals with. Scum who attempt to avoid justice through the threat of the same violence they use on the innocent? Yeah, Castle has a bullet for them.

[pagemurdockandnelson]

Fisk getting shot in the Hawkeye series is just mind-blowing to me. I watched Hawkeye a year before I finally sat down and watched Daredevil. I had only the vaguest idea of the significance of Fisk's character at the time.

Imagine you've been watching Charles Xavier fight Magneto for decades, and then randomly one day you learn Magneto was killed at the end of WandaVision and Charles isn't even mentioned once in the entire show.

I mean, I just watched 47 episodes detailing how Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk are tied together in an inescapable narrative that brings them crashing headlong into each other again and again. How one almost can't exist without the other.

Then in some other show Echo just shoots him in the face. Wild.

[mnemosyne-mirabilis]

Why do fandoms see friendships between male leads as romantic?

<a pro-shipping post>

As a person somewhere on the ace spectrum, I don't appreciate the heteronormative standard that romantic/sexual relationships are "more" than friends. I believe all forms of love can be equally intimate and fulfilling. However, I do not fault fans for putting on shipping goggles. As long as our culture as a whole puts romance on a pedestal, people will have their fun. I don't have an issue with this. I heavily engage with ships myself. What I do scorn are writers who fail to create the compelling heterosexual relationships because they neglect developing their female characters, and their chemistry with the male leads. I believe the lack of written chemistry is an extension of lazy misogynistic writers generally giving female leads little to no complexity, other than directly stating such rather than showing how. It's a classic case of "show, don’t tell". Straight couples are canon, taken for granted as given, and thus, writers don't feel the need to justify why two characters have a strong bond, or like each other at all. Worse than that, to further "sell" the love of on-screen friendships, many shows will draw comparisons to romantic relationships. How is the audience meant to interpret the characters' feelings for each other in this strange paradox where the canon straight relationships have no written chemistry, and the supposed platonic bonds have constant romantic connotations?

I recently rewatched the 2015 Netflix Daredevil show, and I see Matt and Foggy's relationship as full of romantic feelings, as well as his canon relationship with Elektra. I think Elektra was interesting and well-written, actually!! And her chemistry with Matt is believable. Karen, on the other hand. They did her a disservice in many ways. Now, with Matt and Foggy, it's not that I find everything they do as loving friends inherently romantic, it's just that the writers make it difficult to see a connection that rivals theirs anywhere else because all the "romances" are so underdeveloped. And it doesn't help that they keep throwing in little comparative remarks to explicitly romantic things.

Like, "sounds like we're getting married,"

and "you're not going to kiss me,"

or "Yeah, you're just a guy, right? A really, really good looking guy."

Of course, these moments could happen in an entirely platonic relationship, but this is a tv show where each moment is carefully written with the intention to communicate something. Genuinely, what am I supposed to think? Perhaps the writers were going for, 'Wow, look how deep their friendship is!!!' but comparing their relationship to romantic ones is just a bit confusing, you see? Or at least, it's highly likely even that's what the writers were trying to say, but they're not making it easy for me to understand what I just watched solely in the context of the show. Maybe they explained at some point at a convention or in a tweet how the audience is meant to interpret Matt and Foggy's relationship as depicted on screen, but that's besides my point. Art is a figurative form of communication. So if an artist has to explain (communincate) what their figurative form of communication was communicating, then their art partially failed at being art.

[cybersat]

This is me @ (some of) you when I see you post a deeply incorrect Matt Murdock characterization headcanon but I move on in the name of a cool laid back fandom space were we can all share ;)

[amberlynnmurdock]

the way karen literally treated matt horribly too and kept secrets/lied to him and was even ableist towards him but you losers only talk about how poor bby karen bitch page was treated horribly by matt

are you okay anon?? it's really not that serious LMFAO

[ceterisparibus116]

Nuance is absolutely important but I think it becomes unnecessary when it's veering into moving goalposts and skewing the argument in favor of painting one side in a better light (in this case, Karen). Like I said, the "honesty measuring contest" is weird and I'm not sure entirely accurate because Matt's secret has, as far as we know, never put Karen in direct danger? All of the dangerous circumstances she found herself in was of her own doing (taunting Fisk, going out to investigate at night) and none because of Matt's secrets. Whereas her not revealing that she was the one who killed Wesley gave Nadeem a reason to justfify his FBI manhunt for Matt even more.

I just don't see the proper logic behind "oh yeah Karen was hypocritical throughout the course of her relationship with Matt and set hypocritical standards that lead to her breaking it off, but in no way is she responsible for the relationship not working out"...? Isn't the very existence of that hypocrisy, of that weird goal post that, "yeah I can set standards that are palplably hypocritical and if you don't meet that, gooodbye" make her a contributor to its implosion? Relationships entail adjustments from both sides, but it feels like your argument is positioning Karen like a controlled variable and that it should be Matt making all the adjustments. If she knows and is aware that her standards are hypocritical, how does that not make her a reason for it not working out? Notwithstanding Matt's reaction to it or his personal feelings about dishonesty, if Karen didn't have that hypocritical, "non-negotiable" standard then she would be more lenient with things and possibly make adjustment to said standards? And my original point was that Karen put Matt on a pedestal the same way you and many others point out that Matt put Karen to, yet this is never addressed.

I just find it weird to see all the mental gymnastics to frame Matt as the sole reason for the relationship not working out lol? It feels like you're laying out all the facts that yeah, "Karen is this, Karen is that" acknowledging her hypocritical standards yet give a contradictory conclusion that "therefore Matt is all to blame for the relationship implosion" and this is where I'm detecting some cognitive dissonance.

I really appreciate you being so logical and rational about this. It seems like you genuinely want to understand where I’m coming from, and that’s really impressive online!

But let me be clear: in response to your asks, I am talking about which character contributed to the relationship not working out. I am NOT talking about which character contributed to the relationship being unhealthy.

And this isn’t me moving the goalposts. I have, from the very beginning, been talking about one (1) thing: the reason why their relationship didn’t work out.

(And btw, this isn't me trying to skew the argument in favor of one character over another, either. Gosh. I respect how you're handling this discussion overall, but this particular claim is attacking my intentions, not my logic or my argument. For whatever it’s worth, if we’re going into intentions, I actually prefer Matt as a character over Karen. Like, significantly! I’d love to skew the argument in Matt’s favor. I have literally zero desire to skew the argument in favor of Karen. The mere fact that I present an argument that favors one character does not mean that I “skewed” the argument in favor of that character.)

But anyway, for the record, again: I agree that Karen is hypocritical, and that’s bad. I also agree that Karen absolutely contributed to the relationship being unhealthy. She did this in many ways, actually, including but not limited to her dishonesty.

But a relationship can continue to exist despite being unhealthy. And in the case of Karedevil: if Matt had been honest with Karen, but she had refused to be honest with him, all signs point to the idea that they would have stayed in a relationship. Would it be unhealthy? Yes. Would she be hypocritical? Yes. Would they have broken up? NO. The only reason they broke up was because she couldn’t handle his dishonesty.

From watching the show, I see no evidence that their relationship (unhealthy as it was) ended because of her hypocrisy. All the evidence I see points to one reason for their relationship ending: Matt’s dishonesty, and her frustration with his dishonesty.

Please, show me where in the show you are getting the idea that Karen's hypocrisy contributed to them breaking up. Show me a scene or a line of dialogue. Show me evidence.

As for the pedestal stuff…eh, I just don’t see how she put him on a pedestal. I see no evidence that she couldn’t handle the thought of Matt having a violent streak, and I really don’t know where in the show you’re basing the opinion that she thought of him as a perfect goody-two-shoes. She obviously is surprised to learn that the apparently mild-mannered lawyer is a secret vigilante, but I don’t see her ever once being disappointed or upset by his violence. The only thing she’s disappointed and upset about is, again the dishonesty.

Like, please show me where in the show you think Karen puts Matt on a pedestal? Don’t just say “Karen put Matt on a pedestal.” That’s a conclusion. Give us evidence! Give us reasoning! Why do you believe Karen put Matt on a pedestal? I have told you why I think she didn’t – now it is up to you to tell us why you think she did. Repeating a conclusion “Karen put Matt on a pedestal” is not enough to change anyone’s mind.

(And make sure that your evidence isn’t about whether Matt thinks Karen put him on a pedestal. I totally think Matt thinks Karen put him on a pedestal. But what Matt thinks is on him. You must have forgotten this, but I actually already addressed this – you said “this is never addressed,” yet I specifically dug into the issue of pedestals in my first reply to you.)

But ultimately, please understand me: I am NOT saying Matt is solely to blame for their relationship being unhealthy. I am simply saying, and have been saying from the beginning, that Matt is solely to blame for their romantic relationship ending.

And you said that I'm being contradictory by acknowledging Karen's flaws yet refusing to say that those flaws contributed to their relationship imploding. Well, no. A person can have a ton of flaws, and yet it doesn't necessarily follow that all of those flaws would lead to a relationship imploding.

Karen's flaws, in my mind, include not only dishonesty, but also: pride, recklessness, selfishness, and a strange inability (or even refusal?) to learn from her mistakes. But I don't think any of those contributed directly to their relationship imploding because I don't see any evidence that it did in the show.

Similarly, Matt has many flaws besides dishonesty, such as: pride, self-loathing, and obviously some anger management issues. But I don't think any of those flaws contributed directly to their relationship imploding.

So there's nothing inherently contradictory in me acknowledging a character's flaw, and yet not believing that the flaw led to a specific outcome.

Finally, you said: “If she knows and is aware that her standards are hypocritical, how does that not make her a reason for it not working out? Notwithstanding Matt's reaction to it or his personal feelings about dishonesty, if Karen didn't have that hypocritical, ‘non-negotiable’ standard then she would be more lenient with things and possibly make adjustment to said standards?”

And ahhhhh. Maybe this is the issue. Maybe you're not actually asking a question: "If Karen were less hypocritical, then would they have stayed together?" but are making a statement: "If Karen were less hypocritical, they would have stayed together!"

Tell me if I'm getting this right.

To you, "If Karen were less hypocritical, they would have stayed together!" appears to be an objective fact, and you are bewildered by the fact that the fandom doesn't see it. And that's why you think I and others have cognitive dissonance, etc.

However, this statement is not an objective fact. It's a possible interpretation of what might happen if we changed an aspect of Karen.

But here's the thing: that's not the only possible interpretation. Actually, there are five possible outcomes, at least, to her being less hypocritical:

She becomes more tolerant of dishonesty (both hers and his) and therefore doesn’t break up with him over his dishonesty – so ta-da, they stay together;

She becomes less tolerant of dishonesty (both hers and his) and therefore shares her secrets, which results in Matt sharing his – and ta-da, they stay together;

She becomes less tolerant of dishonesty (both hers and his) and therefore shares her secrets, which unfortunately results in Matt still NOT sharing his – and they break up;

She becomes less tolerant of dishonesty (both hers and his) but also can’t bring herself to share her secrets, so she either ends the relationship or doesn’t enter it in the first place – so they’re not together, one way or the other; and finally

She becomes either more or less tolerant of dishonesty (both hers and his), but not to such a significant degree that it causes her to be okay with dating someone who is lying about such a significant part of Matt’s life as Matt is.

Ultimately, all five of these are possible interpretations, because you are veering into the world of speculation with this. Ultimately, we don’t know what would happen if Karen were less hypocritical. We don’t know how the causal chain would continue.

And it’s totally valid of you to have your interpretation, to think “If Karen were less hypocritical, she would be tolerant of Matt’s dishonesty, and they wouldn’t break up.”

But as you can see, two of those options, (c) and (e), would allow her to be less hypocritical, and yet they would still break up due to Matt’s dishonesty. Those are both possible interpretations.

Personally, I think “e” is the most likely explanation. I think that even if Karen becomes less hypocritical, Matt’s dishonesty is so pervasive and so intimately connected with who he is as a person that she would not tolerate it. After all, we’re not talking about little white lies here.

However, even though I think “e” is the most likely explanation, I’m not gonna go around accusing other people of moving the goalposts, skewing arguments, having cognitive dissonance, or engaging in mental gymnastics simply because they reach a different interpretation than the one that I think is most likely.

Like…this is fandom, my friend. Interpretation is subjective. And speculation about what would happen if we changed Karen as a variable is just that: speculation. I could write fics exploring all five different scenarios (which would be fun, actually) because all five scenarios are possible.

The only thing that is objective fact is that she broke up with him because of his dishonesty. Everything else is speculation.

And that’s not me heaping blame on Matt. That’s just me doing an analysis of the sequence of events in the show and their causal connection. You don’t have to agree with my analysis, but gosh, I really don’t see how I’m doing mental gymnastics or anything like that here. I’m literally just looking at what happened in the show.

But we might just have to agree to disagree on this.

[arttrampbelle]

Where was the love for kenshi when he was disabled,not 100000billion megapixels of hd graphics,played by lewis tan or "relevant" again.

If you didn't love kenshi at his dollarstore daredevil knockoff blind swordsman. You dont deserve him at his lewis tan.

I dont even care for kenshi that much. I dont find him all that important beyond one small part in the grand scheme of things. In fact,it's not really all that new or interesting to me personally.

HOWEVER i won't tolerate shallowness for this character either.

Either play him during his crusty days and get good. Or dont come into the fighting arena.

I play mortal kombat. Dont just thirst over saucy men in tights beating each other in a bloodsport. I am in the bloodsport.

Play the damn game.

Have fun. Get good. Enjoy it. Not just for one dude. But for many dudes. All the dudes. Women included. Those dudes too.

Like enjoy mk in IT'S ENTIRETY.

But also DON'T BE AFRAID TO CRITICIZE WHEN NEEDED BECAUSE YOU AREN'T IMMUNE TO CORPORATE PROPAGANDA AND GREED!

Anyways i hope kenshi lovers who are respectful of the character

Have a wonderful day.

[sundry-whovengerslocked]

look,,, rarepairs are great.

crossovers are great.