#idk i haven't understood aos in a while

[gregorygerwitz]

          I don’t typically talk about Agents of SHIELD much anymore, at least not on here, and especially not about canon, but I’ve recently dived head-first into a new otp and I’ve been thinking a lot about it. And a little bit about Pure Genius, because I miss it.

          It’s honestly really weird to me that Holden Radcliffe is the Bad Guy™ right now, especially considering everything that happened in the most recent episode. Then again, that might just be because I’m used to the fandom brushing off everything Coulson does wrong as if it never happened, and the fact that everyone seems to hate Radcliffe right now rubs me the wrong way. Just looking at what each of them has done in the last season and a half alone makes it seem even weirder.

Since the beginning of s3, Coulson has:           -- told Fitz to let go of Jemma and move on, and then proceeded to compare the loss of a best friend to the loss of his hand. is now saying that he won’t ever let go of May, and would probably kill anyone who tried to compare her to any body part           -- murdered Ward. even Coulson himself admitted that it was a mistake, in the opening scene of the newest episode, that he snapped, that he knew it was wrong but he enjoyed it anyway. no, I will not apologize for calling it “murder” because that’s what it is           -- admitted that the thought of brainwashing Agnes to get her to help them get to Radcliffe crossed his mind. he admitted that a few options crossed his mind, none of them ethical, and then proceeded to completely manipulate her in order to get her on their side. similarly, he held Thomas Ward at gunpoint last season, which could have gotten both Fitz and Jemma killed.           -- all of this was done for his own selfish gain

          I’ve noticed the fandom brushing most of this off as nothing, that it’s okay because Coulson is one of the Good Guys™ and anything he does can and will be justified even if he himself says that it was a mistake, or that he shouldn’t have done it, or that it was a line he shouldn’t have crossed. And, honestly, if you believe that, I don’t care. It’s fiction, justify it however you want, it’s entirely open to interpretation, but be consistent. Don’t be the person who says that Coulson killing for selfish reasons is justified simply because the person he took out is “evil,” and then turn around and say that Ward being manipulated to kill on orders isn’t justified in its own way. I wasn’t going to bring Ward into this, originally, so I do apologize for that tiny tangent

          Yet, even after all that, people are still defending Coulson but hating on Radcliffe, who, as far as I can tell, hasn’t done anything worse than Coulson has.

In the first half of s4, we found out that Radcliffe has:           -- redesigned Terrigen crystals so that they don’t kill or harm regular human beings anymore. he took the chemical make-up and changed it just enough that it can still put someone through terrigenesis, but it won’t cause harm to someone who doesn’t have the gene, potentially saving hundreds or thousands or millions of lives down the road           -- devoted years of his life to researching any way to save the woman he cares about from dying of cancer, up to and including implementing the technology on himself so he knows first hand how it would affect someone           -- built a “shield” in the form of a perfect human decoy in order to save lives and make up for all the ones lost because of his advancements when he was working with Hive           -- created a practically perfect virtual reality with the help of aforementioned perfect human decoy that could be used for so many different purposes besides what we’ve already been shown

          It can be argued that everything Radcliffe has done since we first saw him in 3x18 could have been with the goal of helping Agnes in mind. His motivation for virtually everything he’s done has been to save a life. Is it selfish? Potentially. It’s the woman he cares about and loves that he’s trying to save, I’m not saying that his motivations are as good and pure as someone who wants to, say, bring world peace to everyone -- on earth or elsewhere -- but it’s clear that he’s not evil.

          The thing about Pure Genius, a show I dearly miss that deserved to get more than one season is that it deal with exactly this kind of dilemma: does doing something for selfish reasons inherently make it bad? James Bell, a tech billionaire, created a hospital specifically to find miracle cures. His motivation was to create a team of people smart enough and inventive enough to come up with a cure for the disease that he has, but he saved so many lives in that search.

          James created this place of miracles for himself, and it was selfish, but does that erase the fact that it ended up saving so many other people, as well? Radcliffe has devoted years to finding a way to help the woman he loves, and it’s arguably selfish, but does that erase the fact that his technological advancements will do good for so many other people?

          I’m not saying that Radcliffe hasn’t made mistakes, and I’m not saying that he’s the perfect representation of a Good Guy™ character, but maybe he shouldn’t rank below the guy who literally commits felonies and then shrugs it off.