#mi2 drake

[carriethecakerealedition]

thinkin about making am urder island 2 askblog for drake though he ' s probably gonna be the only mi2 askblog as of current and it gets a little lonely in a fandom thats decomposing like a corpse

[foxonfier]

because of the clear differences between ethan as a 32 year old vs 42 year old vs 54 year old, i’d like to highlight some of the key characteristics of all of these “versions” of this character. mi1 ethan is certainly um … a freak, as i like best to describe him. while mi6 ethan, for example, is much more mellowed out and seems to have lost much of his confidence and self-importance after everything he’s been through. and mi3 ethan is still a bit freakish, though has slightly become calmer with age. but first, let’s talk about continuity and things that carry over! because ethan does have a lot of things wrong with him that continue throughout the movies.

lots more below the cut …. god damn

i think talking about ethan’s love life is something that’s going to be very important, because ethan is somewhat of a selfish lover. when it comes to his relationships, he is very much concerned about the way he feels. his dependability on his lovers is clear as day to see, and he needs to be in a relationship to continue functioning like a normal human being. or, at the very least, he needs someone to be the focus of his attention. he needs that “click.” and when that click happens it’s near impossible to shake ethan off. the whole power play thing is also big for ethan; doing things that give him influence over the other person, whether it be narrowing down choices to specifically him ( mi1 ethan ) or saving nyah from security that he called on her ( mi2 ethan ). he’s quite possessive of the people he’s in relationships with, very much obsessive as well. unable to get them out of his head, zeroed in on them at all times.

in mi1, you can tell the moment it “clicks” for ethan. he’s just had a nightmare and when claire touches him to wake him up, he throws her back, points his gun at her and demands to know what she’s doing here. strips off her coat and aggressively searches her, not in a kind or loving manner at all. and then, because he’s ethan hunt, he pins claire to the bed and crawls on top of her, putting his entire body weight on her. he’s just finished screaming at her and now she’s begging for him to listen to her, broken after the “death” of her husband, and being in that position makes ethan realize the feelings he actually does have for her. maybe it’s some sense of importance; ethan feels as though he’s the best person to be in a relationship with these people, because he can do better than their previous lovers. he can protect them and love them. and when things click for ethan, i think any sense of taboo is thrown right out the window. obviously falling for your father figure’s wife is something that is not normal in the slightest. but i digress. realizing his feelings, ethan literally LEANS IN and it looks like he’s going to kiss claire, but he seems to hesitate for a moment and pulls back. and then he gets off of her and sits back in the chair ; and when claire comes over to try and reason with him, telling ethan that she can get the cia to listen to her and believe that ethan is innocent, ethan tells her that if she does that, they’ll just think that she’s working with him and will kill her anyway. leaving her with absolutely no other choice than to work alongside ethan. and when she does this, helping him out, ethan seems absolutely dumbfounded that she ever would. when he’s the one that narrowed down her decision to him in the first place! this just shows me that he doesn’t consciously realize what he’s doing, but the fact that he does do these things in order to trap these women is very um not good!

and then, he finds out jim is still alive. and knowing by this point that jim is the person who set him up and helped kill all of his teammates ( having seen the stamp from hotel drake, chicago in the bible, which is where jim was staying ) he begins to suspect claire, but when he returns to her he just can’t. he wants to believe her so badly, almost selfishly, because he wants her. even when he knows better, even when it could easily jeapordise his entire mission and even his life, he just can’t help himself. and then he ( probably ) has sex with her! after finding out her husband, ethan’s father figure, is alive! so there is very much a pattern with his partners: it all clicks for ethan, he gets selfish, traps them at his side, and then he has sex with them. and after that, he’s completely and utterly in love.

this is especially apparent in mi2, when ethan meets nyah and immediately it “clicks.” he falls for her and becomes selfish in his pursuit, being a general weirdo by following her around and helping her steal something -- then when she steals it, he sets off an alarm to call security in, just to rescue her from security. entrapment! he makes these people dependent on him and kind of forces them into this “damsel in distress” role that he saves them from. making him not only believe that he’s the best option for them romantically, but makes them believe this as well. and nyah doesn’t immediately fall for it, she even calls him out, but somehow ethan finds her physically as well as finds her phone number, and does this um interesting car chase with her. telling her that he needs her just like she needs him. and by this point she might feel that yeah, she does need him, because didn’t he rescue her from security? and because of that she kind of owes him, right? so she goes with him and does this whole undercover thing with ambrose, which immediately makes ethan jealous, showing that very much possessive and protective side of him. and his feelings do end up with the capability to compromise his mission, just like in mi1. because when nyah injects herself with chimera, ethan should kill her. but he can’t make himself do it, and instead he leaves her in order to find a cure and extends the entire ordeal, enough to where he endangers millions of people just because he couldn’t do the right thing. selfish behavior! nyah even asked for it, told him he needed to do it, but he just couldn’t. and by the very end he saves her and probably makes her feel even more indebted to him. and by this point he’s deeply in love with her, and i think that she just … isn’t. sure, she loves him, but maybe she wants something more causal in that she doesn’t want someone to be this dependent on her. she just wants a normal relationship, while with ethan, it will never be normal because he isn’t normal about his partners. so the running idea is that nyah can’t take it anymore -- his behavior, his dependability -- and eventually leaves him. setting him up for mi3, where he meets julia and, most likely, the same pattern occurs.

now i think that mi3 ethan is the most transparent about his selfishness. he finds julia and, instead of telling her who he is, he keeps it a secret. and while i do believe that some part of him wants to protect her from the imf and shield her from that part of his life, i think most of his decision has to do with the fact that … well, he just can’t bear losing her. and telling her that he works for the imf and that his job will likely endanger her and her family might make her leave him. something he just can’t deal with, not when he’s already so in love. so he’s selfish and keeps the truth from her, lying about where he works, even putting on a show about how interesting he finds traffic patterns to all of her friends. charming his way through to them! and more of his weirdo behavior shines through -- using his training in order to eavesdrop on julia’s conversation with her other friends, reading their lips and watching from afar. and he just can’t help himself, he has to chime in with the right answer ( “wanaka!” ) to their personal conversation that he wasn’t at all invited to. freak behavior ethan! and they’re dumbfounded, wondering how the hell he heard them, and ethan just smiles and walks off. he really is still a strange person. and the whole entrapment thing comes up again in this movie -- because ethan is acting odd, something julia notices, and instead of confessing his job to her he just tells her to trust him. and of course, she says she does! and then he goes and marries her, well and truly trapping her by his side. and sure, it’s a cute scene, but the fact that he does this at all is telling to the kind of person he is. even weirder, later on in the movie luther asks him if he and lindsey were sleeping together and instead of answering like a normal person, ethan says, “she was like my little sister.” and luther is like, would you sleep with your little sister? and ethan doesn’t reply!! maybe he just doesn’t designate it with a response, thinking it’s so obvious that he shouldn’t even have to answer, but some part of it may be that … well, he did like lindsey. i don’t at all think they slept together, but it’s entirely possible that he had feelings for her. because the care and love he shows her during the rescue mission is more than he shows for any of his other friends. romantic partners have always been the priority for ethan, always will be, and it’s quite obvious he cares for lindsey a lot, enough to come back into the field just for her. lying to his fiancee even more because of it. so, i definitely believe that ethan having feelings for lindsey is a great possibility. would he have cheated on julia? of course not. he isn’t a bad person at heart, and he wouldn’t hurt her like that. but it definitely seems as though he had not-so-platonic feelings for his former student.

and just like in mi1 and mi2, ethan’s personal feelings get in the way -- which makes sense in mi3 of course, his wife is kidnapped, but he goes completely rogue because of a mistake he made. aka, not changing his name. so davian is able to easily find julia, and because ethan didn’t ever give julia or her family information on who he is, julia’s brother tells a stranger where she is. which you can’t blame him for! how would he have known that he was dangerous? and it’s not like julia’s brother is going to know all of her friends, anyway. so ethan freaks out and tries to find her, bringing his entire team into this situation that he did largely cause, endangering both their lives and their jobs. showing the kind of domino effect of his actions. and he does get her back, but not before truamatizing julia with everything that’s happened to her. and she still stays with him, somehow, but clearly not for too long.

because then everything post mi3 happens and it seems as though julia divorces ethan. of course, no one seems to know for sure what happened, whether she left him or whether she’s even alive or not, which is what ethan wants. but, i do believe that because julia was kidnapped again, she couldn’t deal with it anymore and decided to get a divorce. i think she still loves him in a way, especially as a friend, but being with him just isn’t an option anymore. and ethan’s work will always be important, therefore julia will always be in danger. so they get a divorce and ethan heavily throws himself into his work. this is when he begins doing stunts where he’s actually, truly in danger of dying and this is simply because he has no one to grasp on to. he has no romantic partner and because of that, nothing to heavily focus on and obsess over besides his work. and, i do believe that he becomes more suicidal when julia divorces him, because even in mi4 he climbs a fucking tower where if he fell, he would die! and sure, he doesn’t want to do it at first, but he does. and in mi5 he actually, genuinely dies and ilsa has to bring him back to life just like julia did. and in mi6 ethan does the most insane, crazy shit ever, like driving against high speed traffic or climbing on to a moving helicopter, then crashing said helicopter into ANOTHER helicopter, without so much as a care for himself. no self-preservation at all, and he doesn’t give a shit whether he lives or dies. so, without a love interest, ethan truly does become highly suicidal, turning from something passive to something a little more active. he also blames himself a lot more for things, putting this weight on his shoulders that pushes him to be even more suicidal. such as blaming himself for the bombs being in kashmir where julia is, even though he stopped them from going off! he just loses so much of that prior confidence in himself.

now, of course, ethan isn’t a bad person. he’s compassionate and loving and genuinely feels for people and wants to help them. but when it comes to his partners, he is very, very odd and exhibits intensely strange and possessive behavior. which i think is important to note! he’s not a perfect guy, certainly not the perfect protagonist, and he’s got some major issues. but i think that’s what makes him so fun and interesting, and i cannot wait to see what else he gets up to in future mission impossible movies.