#kastle meta

[theshipdiaries]

Someone was saying that the whole triangle scene was the writers showing Frank as a third wheel in Karedevil, but I completely disagree. There is a huge difference between that scene and the one in which Karen and Frank are talking:

When Karen and Matt are talking, Frank is the focus and the topic, HE is the elephant in the room.

When Karen and Frank are talking they are the ONLY ones in the room. Matt is...just there. On the side... not even on the same frame. He is the third wheel not Frank.

The two very different framings speak for themselves:

Matt and Karen become more and more out of focus and then you can't even see them. And they don't talk about anything else other than....*cough* frank *cough*

And here Matt is all alone and looking uncomfortable hahaha. Not even on center frame. He is not in their world. Frank is the one that lets him in after excruciating silence and Karen's rejection of the coffee. And only does it to break the tension.

[emmerdeusedepuislanaissance]

On when did Frank started falling in love with Karen.

I wonder at point the realisation hit him, when did he finally choose to acknowledge it. Because to be honest I don't even think denial was an option for him, it seemed like the smoothest fall ever, I can't pinpoint when it happend since he goes puppy mode the second he sees her.

I often think of how that troubled him, probably disgusted him as it certainly felt like a betrayal to Maria, as the "human/emotions" part of him, he associated to her and their family, it was reserved to them only and to see him processing that would've been so interesting.

Karen has been a constant in his life for nearly a decade now, regardless of how little they've communicated during that time, his reaction/dedication to her hasn't lessend in the least. It's quite the contrary seeing as he ran to her the second she called.

He tried in his way to extend an olive branch only to be turned down, understandably, but I'd like have an insight of his mindstate/feelings and how they affected him and how he dealt with the loneliness of his choices.

[theshipdiaries]

OMG YES

Okay Kastle Fam. General consensus seems to be Matt was hearing Frank's heart beating jealousy during the whole stitching scene

BUT I posit this:

He actually is hearing Karen's heart stutter as Frank groans in his self-stitching lone wolf routine.

[ironmaidenhead]

karen will see frank kill people and be like "i don't agree with your methods (she does) but i know your heart was in the right place" 🥺 and she's right to do that but it's also why he's always running away from her

[karenpagelover4life]

WHO'S WANTS TO JOIN A KASTLE / KAREN PAGE DISCORD GROUP!?

all daredevil fan can enter https://discord.gg/BPRxsBf8dG

[theshipdiaries]

Thank god I wasn't the only one that was confused! I didn't make the connection at first either!! And then I saw someone on twitter say it and I was like OMG HE WAS ANSWERING HER ACCUSATION. Saying "yes I care Karen, I care about you, I did this for you"

For a bit after the finale, I was stuck on Frank’s “you asked me for a favor. I did it” at first glance it seemed like he was saying “it was just a favor, don’t read too much into it” after her saying she didn’t believe he didn’t care, because Frank’s habit of pushing Karen away BC he cares so much. this is still pretty juicy but angstangstangst.

Well that line of thinking did not live long at all. Because this man is not in the business of lying to Karen Page. Why would he try to convince her he didn’t care? His “favor” got him injured as he was cutting down dudes and you’re not going to convince me he did it solely because “Frank Castle is always looking for a fight”. This is the same level of how-far-Frank-will-go-for-Karen as when he rescued her in the hotel. No one is buying it. And he’s always going on about Matt being true to his feelings and rage, I doubt he’d ever lie to himself about his feelings for her.

No, it was not an attempt to keep her at arms length. His coffee offer was an attempt at apology - his sigh after her turning it down confirmed that for me. And his last words to her was a confirmation.

“Yes. You’re right. I care about you. And I’m sorry. Does it count?”

[theshipdiaries]

"All I can say is I love them"

"All I can say is YES"

"Frank Castle, Karen page and Matt Murdock being a little bit of a triangle is a thing"

"He just looks at her and they look at each other and that says everything"

"And that's something that we talked about a lot in the writers room"

AM I HALLUCINATING??? SOMEBODY SEDATE ME

They didn't ignore kastle😭 the writers acknowledge their connection and story? THEY ACTUALLY LOVE IT??? This can't be true

[kastleexchange]

Hi guys!

April showers bring May flowers, or so the saying goes! It's time for Come what May, kastle: born again week. We've come up with some prompts and ideas for your art/meta/playlists/fic/gifsets/edits/thoughts (thanks @woahpip and @notquitecogent for their help!!), but please don't feel confined to the day (or even the week)

To participate, just pick a prompt or two and post that week on tumblr! Don't forget to tag your works with #kastleexchange / @ us so we can reblog.

May 26th: What Could Be A single scene you want to see. | The first thing they say to each other in Daredevil: Born Again | AU day!!!! bring on the alternate universe dreams you've been thinking about forever May 27th: Still All Heart Use pics from behind the scenes (the already infamous shit-eating grin one ofc) and actual set pics from Daredevil: Born Again to inspire your art/fic set pics | bts May 28th: Who We Are Think of the lines and scenes from DD and TPS that define the character for you - what's your fave line from frank? from karen? how do you think those things could be revisited in Daredevil: Born Again?

May 29th: Say the Quiet Parts Out Loud A conversation you don't think they'll ever have but wish they would. | What are some offscreen moments you wish you could see?

May 30th: Here They Go Again How do you think other characters will react to seeing Frank again? Karen again? Both of them together? | How do you think characters from other Marvel franchises would react to them (crossover time!)

May 31st: Coda The last thing they say to each other in Daredevil: Born Again | How do they make it mean something?

[cyberdragoninfinity]

🔥I would love to hear your thoughts on the girls in Yugioh

I like em a lot but I wish they got to actually Do Things (especially in Zexal, they had so many cool girls and they hardly got to do anything)

I LOVE YOU YUGIOH GIRLSSSS

🔥 kind of insane that "the yugioh girls are good characters and deserve just as much respect as the male characters do" is a bit of an unpopular take but some anime fans are stuck in 2005 livejournal mindsets and do still act like girls in yugioh existing are the most heinous crime against yaoi possible. COULDNT BE ME!!! yugioh girls get behind me i love you I WILL PROTECT YOU!!!

theyre such a weird case a lot of the time too, though, because with the way yugioh works we equate "doing big, heroic moments" with dueling, because...well. This is the Card Game Dueling Monsters show. and the girls really indeed Do Not Get to Duel A Lot (let alone Win a lot) so in that department especially YEAH THEY REALLY DONT GET TO DO MUCH. And you get instances like poor fucking Rio Kastle, who's fridged for half of Zexal in the hospital, and Akiza JUST NOT GETTING TO TURBO DUEL EXCEPT LIKE TWO TIMES, MAYBE. GOD. But something I've noticed alongside that is because dueling = The benchmark for doing big plot actions, when the girls Do get to do some pretty cool stuff that isnt a duel, it doesn't really get dwelled on or talked about too much in fan spaces, and it's a shame!

I will never stop proclaiming that the DM anime was so real and right for making Serenity Wheeler the one to dive into the ocean to save her brother after the pier duel, it's one of my favorite scenes in all of Duel Monsters. SO much bravery and determination in that action. HER EYES WERE STILL HEALING AND SHE DID ALL THAT STILL!!! WAHHH. and god Tori, Tori Kotori Zexal my daughter MY BABY, everyone wants to be like "ohh she doesnt do anything shes annoying" MISS ME WITH THAT!! It sucks that she doesnt duel, yeah, but she does SO FUCKING MUCH over the course of Zexal. She piloted a spaceship out of a black hole. She followed Shark and Kite to go save Hart and Yuma and she was BEATING THOSE LITTER BOTS TO DEATH to save her friends!! She's by Yuma's side for all the incredible bullshit he has to deal with and without her I think he would have just completely fallen apart. She's so tenacious and loyal and fearless when it counts the most and it's such a bummer there's, like, no Tori meta.

I guess that all isnt too much of a hot unpopular take is it??! hrm. I guess it boils down to "some people have equated "not dueling" with "annoying and bad character" re: the girls of yugioh, which imo is a kneejerk borderline-to-genuinelly-misogynist reaction manifesting over what's really a bad writing choice completely out of the characters' hands" and you should really give yourself a chance to take a look at Everything the girls actually did get to contribute to the plot, because you can really find some great character insight and actually pretty important to the plot gestures in there. tl;dr 🔥 if you think ygo girls are annoying im turning you into a golf ball and putting you into a sand pit.

[theshipdiaries]

Same! I wasn't worried and they brought back karen and matt from the ashes for what? She chose Frank on the punisher season 2. So it's done. If she is ever with Matt again it's because she can't be with Frank

I have a lot to say (rant) about this in time, but I just have to say, of all the things I worried about with Daredevil Born Again and the reinclusion of Frank and Karen within the story, the one thing I never feared was that they would try to resurrect Karen and Matt romantically in the year of our lord 2025. It literally never crossed my mind, not even once. The story was so done with them as a couple, we'd moved so far beyond it, that it wasn't even a blip on my radar. And now here we are, and now the biggest threat to Kastle is the reanimated corpse of K**edevil??? Karen and Frank never got a fair shot in canon because of how little screen time they had and circumstances pulling them apart, and then the cancellation of all the shows. Now against all odds they're finally back, and they've got to compete with fucking K**edevil? Really? I'm fuming. (Not to mention how much I hate this for Karen and Matt as characters and how it doesn't make sense at all, I haven't even got into that).

[the-shining-river]

Trajectories

One of the things that break my heart about Kastle is how they’re sort of on opposite trajectories in life.

Frank comes from this decent (middle-class?) family of two loving, if elderly and exasperated, parents, dad always coming to see his games; Frank knowing what he wants to do in life and joining the military without problems, excelling at Quantico and overseas, earning the rank of Lieutenant, enjoying respect and friendship and companionship of the other soldiers. Falling in love and getting married soon after (unplanned as it was), having a beautiful family, able to afford a house in NYC suburbs, proud of and very much in love with his wife 10+ years later, when he’s finally ready to come home and be with his family, start his ‘second life’... And then it all comes crashing down, he loses everything and finds himself on the wrong side of the law; and even as he tries to get over it and heal and make peace with his loss, the world (i.e. the writers of TP S2) once more pulls the rug from under his feet and everything becomes even more hopeless and dark, leaving him thinking he belongs in that violence and that’s ‘who he is’ and always will be.

Karen comes from a mess of a home situation, with her mum dead, family business struggling, irresponsible father expecting her to figure everything out and at the same time showing very little respect for her efforts; add to that the responsibility she feels for her younger brother and all the money troubles and the sense of hopelessness in a little town in Vermont; how she ends up with a loser boyfriend, doing and dealing drugs, postponing her college application to take care of her family; and then it all goes to hell with Kevin’s death and being thrown out of home by her own father. Like, Karen comes from a very dark and hopeless place with not a whole lot of means or options. But she makes it out. She fights, and she finds a place for herself in New York, and then it again goes to shit at her Union Allied job, but again she fights and perseveres until she has two avocado friends (complicated as one of them is lol), and a cause she believes in, and then a mentor and then a better job she downright excels in even without any college education, just her own intelligence and grit. It’s not easy, but she fights and she stays optimistic, and things are slowly improving for Karen Page of Fagan Corners, Vermont.

And the heartbreak lies in Frank having no idea about this. Thinking Karen’s life is all nice and unproblematic, except for her propensity for danger and knowing how to shoot; that she can’t possibly understand him. They could be sooo good together, helping and supporting each other — in Karen’s loneliness and need for justice, in Frank’s needing to reinvent himself and start from scratch again.

But, no, we can’t have nice things except in fanfic ;______;

[uhthor]

it just hurts my heart because karen page would singlehandedly walk on glass to heal all of the wounds she gently touches on frank’s face, she would kiss them better and weave his broken skin back together with the stardust in her tears and she’d do it so unwaveringly, in every situation at any given time. but frank is so adamant on believing that he cannot be the one for her? he is so stubborn in his ways, ironic when he calls karen stubborn, and he won’t admit that deep down loving and peace is what he wants. he feels that he doesn’t have a choice when he does. karen is that choice. he just has to actively choose to take that pathway and he can be granted what he knows he wants. the wars inside of his mind are too ragged and loud for him to concentrate. the demons in his eardrums bang loudly with their cymbals of pain and elemental suffering that frank can’t even register what his heart feels. it’s like they’re disconnected, his head and his heart. he’s been beaten that many times that his body is out of shape and his functions do not align anymore. but when he looks at karen he sees love. and hope, and peace, and happiness. he sees that chance for him to settle with her, for him to get out of this business that he’s so caught up in. but when one fire is dampened, another starts within his mind and he’s back on autopilot. he wants to save everybody he can. he wants to right wrongs, he wants to fix those that can’t be fixed. he’d do everything and anything for someone in that position.

and karen just wants to do that for him.

[karenpage]

There’s a lot to unpack with the kastle episode, so this is my best attempts to articulate my thoughts regarding it. There are, of course, spoilers below the cut but I tried to keep my discussion to only that of Karen and Frank’s interaction (with mentions of the first episode for obvious reasons). This is just my take away, I’ll write more about the season as a whole at a later point.

But yes. The Punisher season 2, episode 11: The Abyss.

Okay. First and Foremost, you can tell the writers were strapped for time, that they might’ve had a larger role for Karen/Deb if she wasn’t busy filming dds3, which sort of makes me bitter because by and far Lightfoot has treated her character better when she’s on screen in the Punisher, but I digress.

We open up on Frank, beaten 99% to death which isn’t new to any long time fan of the show- but there’s something different. Something broken in him that we haven’t seen before and I’ll be the first to admit, it’s as unsettling as it is upsetting. Watching Frank, who has persisted through the worst of the worst, who has conquered unimaginable hurt and grief, be so willing to give up.. Ready to die in way that’s more a sense of him deserving it, rather than a byproduct of the life he’s chosen to live.

It’s all over the news, the radio announcing ‘the Punisher in police custody at the hospital’, and then we cut to Karen toting the sixth amendment and strong-arming her way past the heavy police protection surrounding Frank.

A direct, obvious, and intentional parallel to when they first met.

Frank’s tied to the bed, the setup is similar to that of dds2, visually. But Karen pulls a chair up to his bedside and she waits.

We don’t have any context for time, as for how long she’s there while he’s unconscious but something I’ve read in 10,000 fanfics winded me the moment he woke up. He was having a nightmare, saw the same vision he’d seen of Maria and the kids and then heard a hail of gunfire and screamed when he woke. Karen was there. Soothing him. Comforting him. And she grabbed his hand with both of hers.

Two hands.

It’s hard to watch as Frank relives their deaths, talks, at length about the day his family died and major kudos to Jon Bernthal, yet again, delivering a monologue that ripped my heart out and spat on it (not dissimilar to the speech at the graveyard in dds2 eps4), but Karen’s there every step of the way. She’s quiet, and supportive, and everything he needed in that moment because Frank’s grappling with something big and ugly.

He thinks he accidentally killed some women in a shoot-out with Billy Russo and his gang, they were innocent bystanders, and that circles back to what he’d been dreaming about. About his entire identity as the Punisher, and why he feels like he deserves to die.

‘Now I’m the monster’, GOD, let’s be real for one second. Kastle notwithstanding? That Shit HURTED the emotions evoked with a single sentence, with tears in his eyes and a trembling lip. I Don’t Think I’ll Ever Recover.

But Karen outright refuses to believe that. Denies that Frank deserves to die and she knows something’s up. Because Karen’s pursuit of the truth continues to be a cornerstone in their relationship. There’s some uh … Questionable Writing that I think they meant to use as comic relief but it just came across as gross (like some scenes in the season, the implied humor falls flat in the face of glaring and problematic issues), but, the effect is that she and Madani discover that it was meant to look like Frank killed those women, but Billy had executed them beforehand.

He wanted Frank to suffer. He knew that that’s a wound he’d struggle to heal from when they could only do so much damage to him physically (without killing him, and Billy didn’t want that).

Now, at this point, Frank’s TRIED to have a ‘normal life’ (time to segue into that real quick, because I have to break down episode one even if I’d rather claw out my eyes). Now, I firmly believe that he was doing what he did, behaving as he had because he doesn’t know how to heal. Frank’s never had the after. He says so himself in the end of season one. He’s scared. Where does he go? How does he navigate a life that no longer resembles his own? That’s a lot for a person to do by himself but Frank is headstrong, stubborn, and so he does it anyway.

PTSD (especially recurring, horrific trauma) can make people act… differently to say the least. One of the things associated with losing children, losing family, is that there’s no measure on how to cope with it. Frank saw a chance to feel normal and he took it, but he did himself (and Beth) a disservice. He’s a damaged man, and he was bound to bring all that accompanies it, to her doorstep. I’m not a fan of episode one but, surprisingly, it’s not that Frank hooks up with someone. Not that Frank tries to ground himself in a stranger, carve out a bit of an after. Which, again, people with PTSD don’t know how to open up to the people closest to them because they have the most to lose. If that person/those people can’t see through the fog of his struggle, the loss of them would be catastrophic. It’s infinitely easier to do that with a stranger. You have nothing to lose if they walk away.

My issue was him having sex with a woman named Beth, (his late wife being Maria Elizabeth) and that in the sex scenes they CONSTANTLY hone in on the wedding ring he’s wearing around his neck and he has flashbacks and it’s strange and mildly upsetting? It feels a bit like they were trying to show that Frank’s projecting (which he is) but they went about it all wrong from a narrative standpoint. And then, again, she gets shot - at least she doesn’t die, that would’ve solidified all of my fears - but that pain, that visual is still a raw wound for Frank and it’s what sets him back on the path of being the Punisher, with Amy by his side.

OKAY. BACK TO KASTLE. I have some issues with the scenes, but, again, I think it’s more based on the storytelling (which I’ll address at the end, independently), overall I just.. I love them deeply and profoundly but it definitely hurt to see Karen admit her feelings (again) and be rebuffed (again). NOT because Frank doesn’t feel the same way, not because, in an ideal world, Frank wouldn’t want to be with Karen. But because he doesn’t think he deserves it. He doesn’t think he gets to have a happy ending, period, which is stereotypical of a protagonist in the middle of their hero’s journey (we saw the same shit with Matt Murdock).

Karen straight up said she doesn’t want Matt. That she wants Frank (even if that means wanting and loving the Punisher too - which is new. Karen can’t deny who he is and I don’t think she’s trying to any longer). She told him to give loving someone other than a war, a chance (her. Love her, Frank. Choose her.) and watching her open herself up… pour out the contents of her heart only for him to give nothing (in that moment) in return??? That Shit Hurted 2.0. BUT, him saying ‘he doesn’t want that’, in reference to life with her, where they try together. Is just a continuation of the same thread they’ve shared from the get-go.

Frank continuing to push away the people he cares about most (Curtis, Karen, hell even Madani in the end), while they hold onto him tighter for it. That’s a pretty poignant and reoccurring theme in Marvel’s Netflix; that the heroes detach themselves. Think they don’t get a life like everybody else, and then have to get slapped in the face by the persistence of the people that love them.

He thanks her. That she waited by his bedside for him to wake up and was there for him when he did. He thanks her and there’s something broken in that, too. Like it’s him trying to say goodbye but he can’t find the words just right.

So Karen tells him to show her. AND MY HEART ! FUCKING ! STOPPED ! My gut knew we wouldn’t get a kiss, but this was clearly intended to be one, and Amy’s interruption is a semi-colon. It’s not their end. Just the middle. Which leads me to believe that, should we get a season three, Karen will continue to play a significant part in Frank’s life and they’ll take advantage of the fact that she’s no longer filming Daredevil, and her availability won’t be nearly as limited. Lightfoot and Jon both confirmed that they’d want more and more of her, always.

My take away: They are in love. They confessed it. It was as heartfelt and sad, as beautiful and ugly, as any of their scenes have ever been (And likely will be), but it didn’t feel like an end because it wasn’t. It’s ‘not right now’, if Frank had kissed her, if they’d pushed through and tried to be together then, it just wouldn’t work.

He’s in the middle of his story. That means there’s growth and learning yet to come and Karen deserves more than where he’s at, now. (Doesn’t stop me from writing a fuck ton of fanfic about it, though). He has to learn how to co-exist with the two halves of himself, and that’s something that needs to be done without throwing romance into the mix (but he really shouldn’t be alone, he should get help, and I really fucking hope they touch on that in season 3).

Karen’s also a big girl. She can make her choices and is fully aware of what they mean. I didn’t like that she was hurt, again, by someone she loves, again, and at the end of the day, Karen Page deserves to be loved deeply and entirely and Frank just can’t be that person right now. That doesn’t mean never (what’s the point of telling their story if it ended like that? Lightfoot might be on thin fucking ice but he wouldn’t do Karen OR Frank dirty like that).

The Punisher was written in three parts, the beginning, the middle, and the end (much like every other story, ever). Middle installments tend to be the most poorly received, which isn’t an issue in film franchises because of the revenue stream attached, but it DOES mean shows struggle in their Sophomore years. I like to use ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ as a point of reference, because it was almost universally hated upon release, and is now a cherished part of a dynastic film franchise. People cannot tell a story, or understand it, with only two acts of a three-part play so it can come off strangely, or the general tone can feel ‘off’, because there isn’t active resolution and we’re left with just as many questions as we entered with.

Ultimately, we need a season three to see how this plays out, (we DESERVE one, and a kiss, goddammit), but if this is where it ends. If this is the last time we see Karen and Frank, at least it’s ended knowing they’re in love, that it’s an indisputable fact of canon that cannot be ignored. Whatever that means going forward, we as a fan base can figure out in our own writing, conjecture, and in the beauty of all they’ve shared up until this point.

I am so profoundly happy with what we got, the tone of the season and everything else notwithstanding. I have issues, yes, of course, I do, but I’ve waited well over a year to see them share a screen and this is what my sleep-deprived brain could make of it.

Thank you all for reading, xo.

[theshipdiaries]

THIS IS AMAZING AND PERFECT OMG YES. JUST YES. Your way of describing them and their journey and their complexity and what they mean to each other, what they represent to each other!!!!!! INCREDIBLE. So beautifully put. THERE IS NO FRANK WITHOUT KAREN. They have a COSMIC connection.

Sadly I have very bad luck with ships and most show runners and writers end up fucking everything up either because of pettiness, money, laziness or cowardice (listening to the 1% of the audience aka the incel dudebros). So even if it makes sense, even if EVERYTHING is pointing to Kastle endgame... don't ever expect it. Expect the worst.

A case for Kastle | Why Karen and Frank are end game

The relationship between Frank Castle and Karen Page doesn’t just surpass her connection with Matt Murdock, it fundamentally redefines what intimacy looks like in the darker corners of the MCU.

Where Matt’s love is complicated by secrets and duality, Frank’s is startling in its raw transparency. And crucially, their bond is textually romantic in ways the narrative consistently reinforces.

Matt’s love is fractured by duality

Matt Murdock exists in perpetual contradiction: saint and sinner, attorney and assailant, the man and the mask. His relationship with Karen mirrors this civil war within: every tender moment undermined by secrets, every act of protection laced with deception. He doesn't withhold truths because he doesn't care, but because he's forgotten how to exist without walls. Even as Daredevil fights for her safety, Matt Murdock keeps her at arm's length—not from lack of love, but from the terrifying certainty that to let her truly see him might destroy them both.

Frank’s love is brutal in its honesty

Frank Castle wears no mask, he owns his brutality. And yet with Karen, his most jagged edges as the Punisher soften.

Karen could never replace his family, but she becomes something equally dangerous: proof that Frank Castle might still exist beyond his war. She's the first person who makes him consider there could be an after—not as the Punisher, but simply as Frank. And that's what truly terrifies him.

Because in Frank's world, love is vulnerability. It's the knowledge that those closest to us are the ones who can destroy us most completely. His family's love made him whole; their loss unmade him. To let Karen matter is to risk that devastation all over again. Yet still, against instincts and effort their connection is forged.

Kastle is a lens, not a subplot

Frank and Karen’s relationship isn’t romantic filler, it’s the narrative’s moral compass. A lens through which we learn about their characters. Through their connection, we see:

Frank’s capacity for tenderness beneath the violence

Karen’s strength and empathy in the face of darkness

Their shared language of guilt and vengeance

They are each other's revelation. Karen is Frank's reckoning—the living mirror forcing him to confront the man beneath the body armor. And he, in turn, becomes her permission:

Permission to stop running from the blood on her hands

Permission to stare into her darkness without flinching

Permission to plant her feet when the world says "know your place"

Where Matt's half-truths left Karen questioning her worth, Frank's brutal transparency becomes her foundation. Their connection transcends romantic subplot. It's the spinal column of their shared narrative. Every loaded glance, every silence thicker than gun smoke, every "Karen" growled like a prayer or "Frank" whispered like a secret—these moments do more heavy lifting than any fight scene.

That's why the question was never "will they/won't they," but "how could they not?". In a universe where Daredevil hides behind masks and Kingpin behind tailored suits, Frank and Karen stand stripped bare. No aliases, no pretenses, just two scarred souls recognizing each other in the wreckage.

And that raw honesty? In my book, it's rarer and more revolutionary, than love.

Matt can move on (Frank can’t)

Matt's story thrives on reinvention. Across the comics and the MCU, he cycles through defining relationships (Karen, Elektra, Claire, Kirsten, etc.). Each love interest representing a different phase of his moral journey. We know that Karen in this case, is a chapter in Matt/Daredevil’s story, not the ending. The MCU's current trajectory seems to confirm this flexibility: with new Daredevil projects announced and more adversaries emerging, Matt's character arc clearly has room to evolve beyond any single romance. He's a hero whose growth comes through many varied connections.

Frank's narrative on the other hand, operates on an entirely different principle. It's a closed emotional circuit. His past is defined by the family he lost; his present (and with any justice, his future) by Karen Page. These are the twin anchors of his humanity, because beneath the body armor and bloodstains, Frank Castle remains at his core what he's always been: a family man without a family.

Where Matt's rotating relationships showcase his evolution as a hero, Frank's bond with Karen serves as his last tether to something resembling normalcy. She prevents him from devolving into pure monstrosity. 

This distinction is crucial for understanding Frank as an anti-hero rather than a villain:

Without Karen, Frank risks becoming a one-dimensional killing machine. She serves as his living connection to the world beyond vengeance. 

Karen gives viewers permission to root for Frank despite his brutality. Through her eyes, we see:

The remnants of the man he was before the tragedy

The potential for something beyond endless war

The cost of his crusade on someone who cares about him

With Karen in the picture, The Punisher's story becomes:

A tragedy of survival rather than mindless violence

A meditation on what parts of ourselves we sacrifice to trauma

A question of whether damaged people can still connect

The MCU's current trajectory seems to recognize this. While Matt will continue evolving through new relationships and challenges, Frank's arc demands resolution. His character is getting older, and this crusade it taking it toll (evidenced in Born Again when he is seen taking pain killers on two seperate occasions). Karen isn't just another love interest to him, she's the last remaining thread connecting Frank Castle to humanity and his way out of the life of venegence. Sever that, and you don't have an anti-hero anymore... you just have a loaded gun in a world full of targets.

Their relationship transforms what would just be gratuitous violence into Shakespearean tragedy. Without it, we're left with the shell of a character who long ago forgot why he started fighting.

There’s transformation through love

Love made Frank Castle into the Punisher (a husband and father’s rage crystallized into war). Now love, his simmering connection to Karen, could forge him into something new. Not a saint, not even a hero, but a man who’s learned to carry his losses without being crushed by them.

The tragedy and the triumph is this: The same force that created the monster might yet redeem the man. Not through grand gestures, but through cups of coffee and all the quiet ways two broken people learn to fit together without cutting themselves on each other’s edges.

To me, that’s beyond romance. That’s resurrection.

A Kastle resolution would fit the MCU’s pattern

In the MCU, completed love stories are reserved for characters whose journeys are ending. Steve Rogers gets his dance with Peggy only after hanging up the shield. Thor’s reunion with Jane coincides with her heroic exit. So following this narrative calculus, if the plan is to wrap up the Punisher’s story, it would seem that the Kastle payoff is inevitable.

The evidence: 

1. The original plan to exclude Karen from Born Again was a miscalculation so glaring it had to be reversed. This speaks volumes:

The push for her inclusion recognises her narrative necessity to both Daredevil and the Punisher

Karen's light footprint in Born Again season 1 suggests the show is saving her emotional weight for a more pivotal conclusion

2. The upcoming Born Again season 2 and 2026 Punisher special create an ideal narrative runway:

For Matt and Karen it could provide a clean, mature resolution to their relationship that:

Honors their history without trapping Matt in the past

Gives Karen agency in walking away

Leaves Matt open for fresh dynamics in a potential season 3

For Frank and Karen it grants a sunset moment with gravity:

The Punisher special could mirror Logan's emotional heft (not in death, but in closure)

Karen's arc would be allowed to culminate not as "Daredevil’s love interest” or "Frank's salvation," but as a woman who's faced her demons and maintained her agency 

3. It serves everyone

Matt grows beyond his Netflix-era baggage

Frank's story ends where it began: with love as his defining force

Karen avoids becoming a plot device—she exits as someone who shaped both men

This is narrative justice. The pieces are all there. Now Marvel just needs to follow through.

It’s bitter and beautiful 

Kastle was never meant to be a fairytale. It's two fractured souls using each other's sharp edges to polish their own broken pieces:

Karen's unwavering courage files down Frank's nihilism

Frank's brutal honesty cracks open Karen's shell of guilt

Their quiet understanding becomes armor against a world that wants them broken

In a universe where Spider-Man’s optimism feels increasingly naive, and Daredevil's moral code keeps crumbling, Kastle offers something radical: the notion that damaged people don't need fixing, just someone who sees their cracks and doesn't look away. That recognition alone can make the endless fight worthwhile.

The final verdict

All signs point to one undeniable truth: Kastle is the only ending that does justice to Frank and Karen's complex journey, while still giving Matt the narrative space to evolve beyond his past. The foundation has been meticulously built across multiple shows and seasons. Marvel now faces a choice: honor this years-long character arc with the emotional payoff it deserves, or let these rich, layered relationships fade into unrealized potential.

Giving us a Kastle ending is more than fan service, at this point it is narrative integrity. Kastle represents:

One of the MCU's most mature explorations of trauma and connection

A rare love story built on mutual respect

The perfect emotional conclusion for Frank’s and Karen’s arcs, while allowing Matt to move forward unshackled from old dynamics

The evidence is all there in the text, the subtext, and the behind-the-scenes decisions. The story has been telling us where this is headed for nearly a decade. Now, Marvel just needs to listen to its own narrative.

--

Want to dive deeper? 

Coffee in the MCU

A way forward (my fan theory)

Kastle scene breakdowns: The subtext you missed [WIP]

--

Published: April 23, 2025

Last edited: April 23, 2025

[glycerineclown]

THE PUNISHER SPOILERS! QUOTES FROM THE PUNISHER 2x11 WITHIN!

over the past two seasons of the punisher, i have never been shocked by frank and karen’s declarations of love, no matter how indirect or implied. there’s a fucking reason why i’ve written karen saying “i love you” so often, and so early on in any kind of romantic relationship with frank. 

usually people try to play it cool for quite a while when they’re dating and getting to know somebody, y’know. they hold back all of that shit out of fear. fear that it’s not reciprocated, that it’ll scare the other off, that it’s too soon. but god. frank and karen know each other completely, maybe not in the day-to-day sense, they haven’t spent enough time together, but they know all the most important things, all the secrets kept, all the dark sides. their trust is so real.

karen wants a future for him, so badly. and she wants to be in it. the audience roots for them because they want a future for him too. they see how much lighter, how open he is when he’s with her. 

karen can just stand in front of him and say these things:

“believe it or not, i actually care what happens to you.”

“i want there to be an after for you.”

“that doesn’t change how i feel about you.”

“you and i, we could figure this out together. [...] you could choose to love someone else instead of another war.”

she’s always pushing him on this. in their moments together, she’s always finding ways to tell him she loves him. it’s just the truth. she has no trouble with this, not when it’s frank. he can recreate the plot of toto’s africa but he’s not outright with it to her face because he knows she’d throw everything away for him. he can be with her at his most vulnerable, and that must scare the shit out of him, too. any step in their relationship could literally mean life or death. they don’t have time for fuckin’ games. if they’re in, they’re in. no fuckin’ around. there’s absolutely nothing casual about it. 

frank castle knows that if he gives in to karen page, there is no going back. they’ll be together until one or both of them is dead. and taking that risk isn’t fathomable for him. his heart can’t take the thought of losing her.

“i know you. you’re brave. you’re strong. but you are so goddamn stubborn and you will throw everything away for me, and i cannot let that happen.”

but he also really wants to make out with her. 

anyways if we don’t get a s3 leave me here to die while i write it myself

[hipsterfrankcastle]

imagine if karen’s only in one ep but curtis brings up what happened with fisk and asks if frank saw any of it on the tv, imagine amy teases frank about the way he lives like a monk and he gets all blush-y and when she prods him and asks if he has a girlfriend he tells her to go do the dishes imagine he and dinah go for a drink in some grotty bar and sit there not talking until she finally asks how after karen and he has to get up to leave because he doesn’t KNOW how karen is, imagine a little moment where he picks up the bulletin in a diner and automatically looks for her by-line, pure force of habit, imagine the waitress asks him if he wants coffee and it’s obvious that he’s thinking about that first talk in the diner, imagine there’s white flowers on the windowsill there and his gaze settles on them for a moment until Dinah or Curtis or whoever calls and the plot moves forward, imagine when karen finally turns up and he hugs her so quickly and so hard because it’s all he can think to do imagine that IMAGINE!!! GOD !