#daredevil discourse

[pagemurdockandnelson]

I'm so glad it feels like the show is finally getting its feet under it with the recent eps, but man those first three were rough...

The ending of Ep2 highlights one of the biggest issues I have, as a writer, with DD:BA -- the shock value writing.

We hear an audio effect of a snapping sound when Matt hits Powell hard enough to flip him and knock him down. The man lands on his neck and they added an audio effect. This sound had no narrative purpose -- in the next ep, Powell has a black eye but is not severely injured, not even wearing a neck brace. The only reason this sound was added was to make the viewers think Matt had killed the guy. A cliffhanger to make us all wonder for an entire week and to bring us back next Tuesday.

Cliffhangers aren't inherently bad, but they should be earned through good storytelling and not thrown in with no narrative sense.

Killing Foggy in the first 15 min of Ep1, the way the fight at the end of Ep2 was edited, and shooting Hector at the end of Ep3 right after his not guilty verdict are all shock value tactics.

The equivalent in horror movies is the jump scare -- yes, it accomplishes its goal of a sudden release of emotion during tense stretches, just like these scenes did. But ultimately, the audience is quick to figure out you're doing it just to get a rise out of them. And eventually they'll realize these quick emotional shortcuts have taken the place of deeper writing and emotional connectivity to the characters we really want to care about.

[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

[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

[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. ❤️

[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.

[mattmurdocksslut]

cant believe they were fine😭 87% of the daredevil ep2 discourse i saw was whether or not matt killed them or just seriously injured them but this dudes really just walkin around like dang i cant believe a blind lawyer can fight

[userhafsa]

[spoilers for Daredevil Born Again eps 1-2]!!!!

i was rewatching the second ep of born again and like i just.. wanna talk about that ending scene??? fucking what the fuckkkk. the punisher tattoo..?? that dirty cop completely missed the point of what Frank’s message was. frank kills people like him.

matt’s whole “You don’t want to do this.” he may have been talking to himself also ? to not get violent, to not let daredevil out. spoiler alert: he did! beating those guys senselessly, like jfc that arm break scared me like oml. everybody on TikTok is already having a discourse on whether or not Matt killed those guys?? bc honest to god, it looked like he did esp that second fella. he’s gotta have some sort of brain damage idk im no doctor

him picking himself back up at the end, glasses on, trying to collect. you can literally hear his thought process “shit fuck what did i do. why did i do that. i shoudnt have done that” He’s broken his rule of no daredevil, getting into a fight after an entire year. Contradicting his conversation with Fisk. Contradicting the whole livelihood he’s established since Foggy’s death. he became the man Foogy wanted him to become and it all goes poof. Then that primal scream like oh my fucking goshhhhhhhh.

[flashfuture]

"spider-man isn't a cop" discourse is so funny because I don't think it's really a route we wanna go down. Like no Peter Parker is not a cop.

Instead, he's an impossibly strong completely unregulated vigilante prone to extreme acts of violence that could probably end up qualified as domestic terrorism. It's not even about the supervillains. It's regular ol criminals he beats the shit out of them and then suspends them from lamposts and shit. no due process no potential for holding him accountable. Not even the other heroes in Unvierse over decades of comics can get through to Peter that he's a bit of a thug and should try to do more than beat people up.

Peter goes abroad frequently to beat people up then come home. On two occasions he fucking killed people abroad then when back NYC facing no repercussions for his actions. (The guy he blew up to avenge his parents was retconned he survived But the comic made it clear Peter intended to kill the guy and thought he did. This was an early days comic. And Charlemagne the spy he killed mixed up with Wolverine in Germany we're talking 80s the Berlin Wall was still up. And it was just in a recent Daredevil comic he admitted to Matt he murdered somebody)

Hearing there are drug dealers or whatever other criminal, breaking and entering all over the place, and then beating up anybody involved and leaving them for the cops. Like you need need a reallll bendy spine to twist your way out of how that's not cop behavior and was not Always cop behavior.

[keepsmagnetoaway]

Marvel Team-Up 100 (December 1980)

Chris Claremont/Frank Miller & John Byrne

We've read a fair few issues of the long-running Marvel Team-Up and it's always an interesting time: now, for its 100th issue, we have the treat of it featuring X-Men (or, at least, X-Men-related characters) in both its main story and its back-up, both of which are striking and important stories.

In the first of them, the featured team-up is actually Spider-Man (yay!) and the Fantastic Four (boo!), but the story also introduces the silhouetted figure you can see here, initially seemingly as a villain.

If you're thinking "fuck, these layouts are good," then you're right: it's Frank Fucking Miller! We don't have time for Miller Discourse - I will literally never have time for Miller Discourse - but Miller here was at the beginning of his imperial phase, having just started drawind Daredevil and being on the point of taking over writing on it too, and his distinctively moody take on New York City is on display in this issue. This nightmare Deco tower, at a wildly expressionist angle, is purest Miller.

Anyway, I'm skipping over most of the action here because it's Reed Richards bullshit and I hate it, but I do want to talk about that mysterious new character: it's Karma, and she's got Issues.

A beautiful panel filled with politics: that's good comics, baby. It's important to say that there is also a fair amount of tone-deaf stuff about Asians in this issue - Karma's wider family feature and they're not exactly subtly depicted, especially the villainous members, who include Karma's evil twin brother.

And yet...this is 1980, the Vietnam War is a recent memory in the US, and along comes a complex, traumatized Vietnamese character, who evolves from villain to anti-hero to something like a full-on hero in the space of this single comic when - in a moment that's genuinely shocking, coming as it does in the middle of a fight in which Peter Parker and Ben Grimm seem to be competing to make the most wise-cracks - she kills and psychically absorbs her brother. This, I repeat, is our introduction to this character, her very first issue. Fucking hell.

And that's Karma! The story ends just after this, with her tentatively established as some kind of hero, but the reader is none the wiser about what's coming next for her: which was, as you probably know, an integration into the X-Men world and a gradual emergence as one of the most interesting and popular characters of that world (helped by the fact that she also eventually turns out to be gay, hell yeah). It's a hell of an introduction and a fascinatingly political story about the shadow of American imperialism, and it's then followed by this issue's back-up story, which is also powerfully political.

This is a Claremont/Byrne story, a little chaser after our farewell to him in the main book, and (despite the team behind it...) it's about Blackness. It's The One Where Storm and Black Panther Meet, And Also Apartheid South Africa Tries To Kill Ororo.

It's actually largely told, after the initial sequence, in a flashback to their first meeting, and I have tried and failed to work out how it's supposed to fit in with the backstory also depicted in the 2006 Storm series - I don't think they exactly line up, but the 2006 series does sort of reference and expand on this story, in particular by reusing Andreas 'The Bull' de Ruyter, the enjoyably repulsive Afrikaner villain.

In the present, it turns out, de Ruyter is still trying to kill them, and they get to defeat him all over again, and part ways in a bittersweet, ship-teasy moment (again, no idea how this fits into subsequent canon with them getting married and so forth, but, who cares).

This is a really remarkable issue, all told, and though it's all created by white men, and as ever there are some, shall we say, heavy-handed moments, but its use nevertheless of a Vietnamese heroine, her life ruined by American warfare, and of two Black heroes fighting an explicitly apartheid-supporting villain is pretty striking: on top of which, the art is outstanding. Great stuff! This is also the start of a run of half a dozen guest appearances and the like from this era that we're about to read, so let's hope the rest of them are this interesting.