#namor: just thinking about drowning colonizers

[livstarlight]

First UN meeting where Wakanda and Talokan show up as a united front and Shuri and Namor are both attending

Shuri:

Namor: *horny jail*

(M'Baku is there to actually listen but he is also a fan of the drama)

[mymarsmoonandstars]

About Killmonger...

and his usage of the word sacrifice, and how he compares to Namor

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It's so interesting to me that just like Shuri, Killmonger is wearing white in the ancestral plane. They're mourning clothes for him, too, aren't they? If they are, in a film about moving through the grief and resentment that comes with loss, his white clothes represent that Killmonger is stuck—stuck in anguish, stuck in rage. This may explain why he told Shuri that Ramonda sacrificed her life for Riri, because in his mind, his own father N'Jobu sacrificed his life for the African diaspora.

(By the way, I am using the word sacrifice here because this is the language Killmonger uses, and I merely want to study why. I myself do not believe N'Jobu's or Ramonda's deaths were. When black folks are murdered, I don't view their deaths as sacrifices. They didn't want to die. Both N'Jobu and Ramonda were human beings desperate to save someone (or someones, in N'Jobu's case). The word sacrifice to describe the deaths of black people should be applied with the utmost care, because there is a history of people using that word against us, as it places culpability on the murdered black person instead of the one who actually did the killing. It also reduces black folks to always being the strong and resilient type when we can be victims, too.)

In the first film, Killmonger's father's death motivates him to finish what N'Jobu started and spread vibranium weapons outside of Wakanda to wage a vengeful war—this is his way of "taking care of business" which he encourages Shuri to follow. In calling Ramonda's death a sacrifice, he does not take away blame from Namor, but rather does so to inspire Shuri to act. He urges Shuri to make sure her mother did not die in vain and to instead use her to justify even more bloodshed, just as he had done with his own father. Him wearing white shows he hasn't progressed from this sentiment, and even after all that's happened, he is still very much in pain. It's like he wants Shuri to wage the war that he never got to.

I think Killmonger views the loss of his father as a sacrifice to cope with it, and to him, his father's and Ramonda's deaths are one and the same. In reality, N'Jobu was killed by his own brother then abandoned. Ramonda was drowned as punishment. Neither wished to die. Neither should have died. But to view their deaths as sacrifices? It takes away the brutal truth and gives their deaths purpose. Sacrifice as euphemism. Sacrifice translated into action. He spurs Shuri to vengeance this way, but it doesn't come across as manipulative. For Killmonger, Ramonda and N'Jobu both died protecting a Black American(s), and being that he's never healed from his trauma, he coaches Shuri in the only way he knows how.

But how is never as important as why, isn't it? I've been trying to come up with an answer as to why Killmonger mimics Namor's line. I think to understand it, you have to draw some parallels between him and Namor. The core of what makes them anatagonists is that they both wanted to wage war against colonizers in the name of protecting their people. But they have much more in common beyond that:

White supremacy displaced both Killmonger and Namor. N'Jobu had to hide them away in Oakland just as Namor's mother Fen had to take refuge in the water.

You know how N'Jobu always told his son about how beautiful the Wakandan sunsets are? And how Fen told her son stories about a land and people who never had to change? N'Jobu and Fen filled their children's heads with stories of their homelands dressed up as fairytales. Consequently, Killmonger and Namor grew up thinking of home as an idyllic place that they should have belonged to, but a place always out of reach.

Killmonger and Namor witnessed their father and mother grieving the loss of where they came from. They inherited this grief, this longing.

They have a complicated way of seeing life—they fiercely want to protect their people, but are so blinded by this that they harm those who should be their allies (Killmonger killing black people and other people of color as an American soldier, Namor's assault on Wakanda, both becoming the very thing they hate).

Adding onto the last point, death is sadly common for them. As a boy, Killmonger says, "everybody dies, it's just life around here" which is very similar to Namor's "when you age as I do, you realize we all lose everyone we love." Their hearts are hardened against death, and this is truly a sad thing, and allows them to commit tragedies devoid of sympathy.

So it's kind of perfect that Killmonger echoes Namor's "how is never as important as why." The two characters uphold the same motif of the Black Panther films—to not only look at their methods, which are not the best and at times even downright wrong, but to understand the reasoning behind them.

Remember, despite everything, T'Challa still takes Killmonger to see the Wakandan sunset. The image of these two sitting together and watching the sun go down in Wakanda embodies this theme of empathy, and mirrors Shuri and Namor watching the sun rise over Talokan.

[deviiancetv]

Cinema Starview Presents: The Legacy of T’Challa

I just got done watching Wakanda Forever, and all I’ve got to say is that, this movie was a beautiful love letter to Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa. This review will be a little short, contain some spoilers, and just overall my opinion on why I’m glad they did the movie this way.

Shuri’s journey throughout the film is an incredible tale of a young princess watching her entire family die right in front of her, leaving her to be the sole survivor and heir to the throne (or so we think). The opening to the movie shows us a stressed Shuri trying to find a rapid cure to help save her brother, T’Challa from a mysterious illness. Then later towards the middle of the movie, Queen Rawanda dies from drowning after saving when our underwater mutant villain, Namor, strikes Wakanda with his soldiers. The backstory of Namor, it was so cool how much the Talokans share similarities to the Wakandans, from the heart shape herbs to both nations having vibranium as a precious resource world governments want colonize. I’d love if in the future we get a movie where both nations come together to protect vibranium from the hands of a big evil. If Dr. Doom has any involvement with this, that’ll be 10x more amazing. It’s important to remember that this movie shows us how that minorities are always combating against each other and within our own communities, when the real enemy are the colonizers and governments that continuously steal from our own. I do hope they focus on that in a future BP movie along with a Namor movie.

But back to Shuri, the scene where she took the purple herb and was transported to the Ancestral Plane, her conversation with Killmonger. It was touching how much her similarities to him were of battling that need for revenge vs. trying to be passive and forgive. Even her suit has gold and silver accents that are mirrors of both T’Challa and Killmonger’s suits. I loved that slight touch to Shuri’s suit and even her portrayal in this movie. From being the tech girl in the background in the first film to now being in the forefront with a complex hero arc.

The introduction of Riri being an MIT student who created a machine to locate vibranium… can we say YOUNG PRODIGY ALERT!!! We definitely needed her in this film as the lighthearted comic relief, as well as Mr. Thicc Legz himself M’Baku, those two really made this movie somewhat lighthearted amidst all of the grief and sadness. Knowing that Riri’s show will be about the battle of technology vs. magic and she’s going against the whole Hood (pun intended) I’ll be invested to see where her character arc translates from this movie to her series.

// ⛔️ SPOILERS ⛔️ // So, Nakia & T’Challa had a son together!!! This is sooo exciting, because there’s so much that can happen from this alone. Toussaint aka T’Challa Jr. or TJ is definitely gonna take on the role as Black Panther in the next few years. I wonder if they’re gonna age him up so that he can take on the mantle a bit sooner, or if they’ll just wait for him to get a little bit older to join the Young Avengers.

Lastly, I know there was a lot of uproar on Kevin & Ryan not wanting to go about recasting T’Challa, while some fans wanted this to happen, others wanted a new actor to take on the mantle. The reason why I personally never liked the idea of recasting, is because T’Challa meant A LOT to many black people, and it was one of the most important and beautiful films about our people in YEARS. Every black film is either a trauma film, or a ghetto struggle film, Black Panther was the first film where we actually saw ourselves in a fantasy superhero world and the mix of afrofuturism and African royalty all mixed together in one. T’Challa meant a lot — and still does to everyone, especially black people. So, the idea of recasting him, to move on from Chadwick’s passing with a new actor that wouldn’t have made the same impact… it would’ve felt like pouring sugar on an open wound.

Plus, Chadwick passed when we were in the middle of the pandemic — we’ve all lost loved ones in the past 2, 3, 5, 7 years that we still haven’t fully moved on from. I know from experience that grief isn’t easy, and it never gets better, and you never fully move on. That’s what this movie symbolizes. That is the beauty of this movie in my eyes. This movie is grief perservering as Vision says. I’m hopeful for the future of the franchise and I do hope Letitia does decide to stay for a few more movies. Her role as Shuri was really amazing!! This movie was just extremely sad, but it was an important movie to hurdle over.

Also, just to make men upset… if you’re mad about this movie having black women take on bigger roles, and being the main characters, I’m gonna need for you to look deeper into yourself and figure out why your masculinity is so fragile anytime women take the lead. If you are genuinely mad about women taking the lead, please croak. Thank you very much.

🖤✊🏿 WAKANDA FOREVER ✊🏾💜

SCORE: 9.5/10 ⭐️

[magicandsugarcubes]

The antis are loud and ignorant because they know we are about to come full-force and they're scared🤣.

Someone on Twitter said that Namor, the Mayan Indigenous character whose people were almost wiped out from sickness because of Spanish colonizers, was an oppressor. They are incredibly tone-deaf, racist and ignorant. Please do not worry about anything they do or say.

Namor/Shuri is the bigger ship in the Fandom, nothing else compares but the antis are just louder with their hate. When Wednsday comes, we need to be louder and drown them out.

I saw, that's one of the things that set me off. Like excuse me?! Please I beg them to rewatch Black Panther and reevaluate the setting and the cause of conflict. I just need to people to exercise a little bit of sense. Do people not see the major themes of imperialism/colonialism throughout the BP movies?! Like you said they literally had to flee to the sea. It's fine to think the killing of Ramonda was wrong (I am not here for it myself.) But that doesn't make Namor an oppressor. :I

[imperiuswrecked]

you ever just sit and think, wow if Namor was canonically Asian it could open the door to so many environmental conversations that the news tends to snub? Like Japan going back to whaling, or western countries sending their excess trash via boat to poor Asian countries and leaving them out floating. Heck, the Philippines had to shut down a major tourist island because the beaches had gotten so polluted they just HAD to do a massive cleanup

The effects of pollution harming Atlanteans are in the comics alot. They are poison and Atlanteans die from it all the time. Also other things that point out how the Atlanteans are Native coded is how often the surface world tries to move into the oceans without their permission, occupy their land or try to set up a place for surface people to live. (reminds one of how colonizers did the same thing) So Namor/Atlanteans could really be any race of people who has been hurt by colonizers and by pollution harming them to the point it kills their food sources, and destroys their homes (Native Americans etc.) Namor is east-asian coded for sure imo.

More below the cut because I kinda got long with this.

As I am not Japanese, nor do my people rely on Whales for food/cultural history etc. as other people such as the Inuit people do and I do not know the full history of whaling so I can’t really comment on Whaling, I only know that Japan is often signaled out for Whaling when Norway and Iceland do it too, but receive far less spotlight/media attention. Whaling is something that isn’t new, but commercial whaling/hunting whales to extinction is an issue.

Pollution is a huge issue in the world, especially pollution in the oceans, which I try to do what I can to help, but the fact is, unless the world comes together to stop it, big name companies are just going to keep blaming people for the issues they create. The plastic straw ban recently in the U.S. was one of those gimmicks where they try to blame people for pollution that big name companies make. Western countries dumping their trash in other places, is another huge issue. 

I’m going to be frankly honest here, I do my part to keep the world clean, recycling, etc. but I have seen a trend where these days, pollution and climate change are not taken seriously, yes some people do take it seriously but often they are drowned out by the Big Name Companies who stand to lose a lot of money if they were held accountable for their parts in harming the environment. In the 90s there was more media attention, more people were aware of being economically friendly, and there where shows dedicated to educating kids about helping the world. Like Captain Planet etc.

In that time Namor did become an eco warrior and his comics reflected that, they show him fighting pollution by big name companies (like Roxxon) they show him witnessing the devastation of animals homes due to pollution. 

One of my favorite comics, has no words, and it is about Namor enjoying nature and its really sweet and light hearted before turning on a dime and instantly changing into a horror where Namor witnesses the effect of the pollution that comes from companies. It’s heartbreaking.

Marvel Comics Presents (1988) #33

However that stopped, and you have to ask yourself, why did it stop? When did we as a people stop promoting taking down big name companies who are harming the environment? A lot of it has to do with those companies wising up and doing things to distract people/downplay their involvement in destroying the world.