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Five characters I like who did things I hate
Meme borrowed from everywhere, I suspect. The more I read these, the more the problem seems to be laziness or at least omission on the part of the writer, but this is the canon that is, and wishing cannot change it. (Also, I have a tiny kitten demanding my attention - I have to walk him to his food and stay while he eats it - and this is easier than fic!)
Just in case anyone needs spoiler warnings: Revenge of the Sith, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, X2, X3, Uncanny X-Men 150 and other non-current X-comics and Daredevil comics from 1994 are mentioned.
1. Padme's death in Revenge of the Sith
Dying for no apparent reason? WTF? She was established as a brave, clever, romantic person who cares deeply about justice and the welfare of others. Quite apart from the babies she is abandoning, Obi-wan didn't actually kill Anakin: if their connection is so strong, why couldn't she go looking for him? Maybe Palpatine's ships got there first, but I couldn't believe she just gave up. Before I saw the movie, I had heard that she died, but not how. When she ended up on the lava planet with Anakin, I thought that perhaps she died there, far from medical care, with only Obi-wan for help. Sad, but explicable (leaving out the part about Leia remembering her, because I'd totally forgotten that). Then, I thought she was going to be part of the early Rebel Alliance, which would be awesome, but, again, no. It was as if she would be an unnatural mother by giving up her children for their own safety. Padme never gave up, and always stared down the odds. So did Leia and Luke, even if Luke had his mouth hanging open as he did it. This was not right.
2. Dumbledore's treatment of Merope Gaunt in Half-Blood Prince
When I read the book, I was bothered by the glossing over of Merope's relationship with Tom Riddle: I was very interested to see what actually happened.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gehayi brought this feeling to a head when she posted to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
hbpspork with the comment that Dumbledore provided no evidence that Merope used a love potion on Tom: evidence for every other damn thing, but nothing about what Merope actually did. I can think of a goodly number of ways that she could have become pregnant with Tom Riddle's baby, and most of them don't involve accusing a long-dead person of being a rapist. Dumbledore has certainly made some poor decisions in the past - even some cracktastic ones - but he made them with good intentions, and from assuming the best of people until seeing evidence to the contrary.
In Merope's case, he has seen her at point A - abused, helpless, using magic poorly, accused of making eyes at a Muggle - and at Point B - pregnant by said muggle, not using magic, destitute and shortly to die. To me, the obvious connection is not "she drugged him, but let the drug wear off because she loved him, let him dump her then stopped using magic out of love". To me, the obvious connection is "she was never any good at magic, due to abuse and lack of training, slept with the Muggle that represented good things to her (or, for a kids' book "had a romance with"), got pregnant, ended up destitute and died". There's probably much more to either version, but the second version - that she was never powerful in the first place - makes much more sense. Why did Dumbledore not present his evidence? He could have a marriage record, Tom's friends wondering why he's changed, other magical folk who bought things from Merope or gave her work before she was so desperate that she sold Slytherin's locket, even a record of ingredients present in the house or that she bought for the supposed potion. And yet, he has judged her a rapist (power-obsessed) who would then voluntarily give up their power - over others and their own life - for love. Methinks Dumbledore was a bit drunk on the idea of love in that particular book.
3. Every half-baked plan Magneto has ever made (X-Men comics and movies)
Okay, all the humans are dead. Now what? Use our extremely useful mutant powers to keep those nuclear power stations from blowing up? What about all those planes that were in the sky? Statistically, some had mutants on them. And we don't even know about mutant/human genetic interaction, in movieverse. In comicsverse, Magneto's own family runs:
mutant + human
|
mutant + inhuman
|
human
Do mutants have mutant babies? All the time? What about the humans who would have had mutant babies?
Or, okay, you can make a way cool volcano anywhere you like in the world. What are your actual, achievable demands? What does "relinquish governing power to me" even mean? How are you going to administer your new world government? The nuclear disarmament part (because it threatens mutants as well as stupid humans) is not so bad, but I still don't see how this is going to be enforced in any meaningful way.
Frankly, after all this, going off to an asteroid (or to Genosha for Fun Summer Antics With Charles) and asking to be left alone is looking rather good. Yes, Magneto probably does have a mental illness and can't make a plan for toffee, but that doesn't get people off the hook in everyday life, and he wouldn't accept it in any case. Maybe he should just kidnap Cyclops and they can work together to create a really great plan that, for once, won't fail the second people fail to do exactly what Magneto told them.
4. Everyone in X3 who fights one-on-one
Haven't any of you seen ninja movies? What happened to all that teamwork? All those hours you supposedly spend in the Danger Room? The fighting is so bad that when Wolverine, Colossus and Beast actually do use some really basic teamwork, it's a huge surprise. Storm and Iceman are the worst offenders here: each could have taken out the other's opponent with ease, but they took up personal grudges instead. This is not Jerry Springer. There are no chairs.
5. Daredevil faking his own death just so his friends stop teasing him about his incredibly ugly new costume (Series 1, #325)
I'd talk about Kevin Smith's arc, but the writer's string-pulling is so blatant there that I can't blame the characters for bad decisions. Instead, I'm going to go for the remarkably bad Chichester run back in the early 90's. Ben Urich's files were hacked by a whizz-kid journalist, Sarah, and she was going to prove Matt was Daredevil (yes, this does happen quite a lot). Ben Urich warns Matt, and gets Sarah hauled off by the FBI, but Matt still decides it would be way fun to fake his own death, via a convenient plot device furnishing him with a dead body double. Oh yes, and he's going to get rid of the classic red costume in favour of a grey and red BMX riding suit. (I'm talking to you, current Spider-Man writers.) Then, sadly, he decided to live on the streets and fight crime. This was all shamelessly retconned within 25 issues. Especially the part where Matt's new civilian identity was... "Jack Batlin". It's the kind of comic that makes you ashamed to be a geek.
Meme borrowed from everywhere, I suspect. The more I read these, the more the problem seems to be laziness or at least omission on the part of the writer, but this is the canon that is, and wishing cannot change it. (Also, I have a tiny kitten demanding my attention - I have to walk him to his food and stay while he eats it - and this is easier than fic!)
Just in case anyone needs spoiler warnings: Revenge of the Sith, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, X2, X3, Uncanny X-Men 150 and other non-current X-comics and Daredevil comics from 1994 are mentioned.
1. Padme's death in Revenge of the Sith
Dying for no apparent reason? WTF? She was established as a brave, clever, romantic person who cares deeply about justice and the welfare of others. Quite apart from the babies she is abandoning, Obi-wan didn't actually kill Anakin: if their connection is so strong, why couldn't she go looking for him? Maybe Palpatine's ships got there first, but I couldn't believe she just gave up. Before I saw the movie, I had heard that she died, but not how. When she ended up on the lava planet with Anakin, I thought that perhaps she died there, far from medical care, with only Obi-wan for help. Sad, but explicable (leaving out the part about Leia remembering her, because I'd totally forgotten that). Then, I thought she was going to be part of the early Rebel Alliance, which would be awesome, but, again, no. It was as if she would be an unnatural mother by giving up her children for their own safety. Padme never gave up, and always stared down the odds. So did Leia and Luke, even if Luke had his mouth hanging open as he did it. This was not right.
2. Dumbledore's treatment of Merope Gaunt in Half-Blood Prince
When I read the book, I was bothered by the glossing over of Merope's relationship with Tom Riddle: I was very interested to see what actually happened.
gehayi brought this feeling to a head when she posted to hbpspork with the comment that Dumbledore provided no evidence that Merope used a love potion on Tom: evidence for every other damn thing, but nothing about what Merope actually did. I can think of a goodly number of ways that she could have become pregnant with Tom Riddle's baby, and most of them don't involve accusing a long-dead person of being a rapist. Dumbledore has certainly made some poor decisions in the past - even some cracktastic ones - but he made them with good intentions, and from assuming the best of people until seeing evidence to the contrary. In Merope's case, he has seen her at point A - abused, helpless, using magic poorly, accused of making eyes at a Muggle - and at Point B - pregnant by said muggle, not using magic, destitute and shortly to die. To me, the obvious connection is not "she drugged him, but let the drug wear off because she loved him, let him dump her then stopped using magic out of love". To me, the obvious connection is "she was never any good at magic, due to abuse and lack of training, slept with the Muggle that represented good things to her (or, for a kids' book "had a romance with"), got pregnant, ended up destitute and died". There's probably much more to either version, but the second version - that she was never powerful in the first place - makes much more sense. Why did Dumbledore not present his evidence? He could have a marriage record, Tom's friends wondering why he's changed, other magical folk who bought things from Merope or gave her work before she was so desperate that she sold Slytherin's locket, even a record of ingredients present in the house or that she bought for the supposed potion. And yet, he has judged her a rapist (power-obsessed) who would then voluntarily give up their power - over others and their own life - for love. Methinks Dumbledore was a bit drunk on the idea of love in that particular book.
3. Every half-baked plan Magneto has ever made (X-Men comics and movies)
Okay, all the humans are dead. Now what? Use our extremely useful mutant powers to keep those nuclear power stations from blowing up? What about all those planes that were in the sky? Statistically, some had mutants on them. And we don't even know about mutant/human genetic interaction, in movieverse. In comicsverse, Magneto's own family runs:
mutant + human
|
mutant + inhuman
|
human
Do mutants have mutant babies? All the time? What about the humans who would have had mutant babies?
Or, okay, you can make a way cool volcano anywhere you like in the world. What are your actual, achievable demands? What does "relinquish governing power to me" even mean? How are you going to administer your new world government? The nuclear disarmament part (because it threatens mutants as well as stupid humans) is not so bad, but I still don't see how this is going to be enforced in any meaningful way.
Frankly, after all this, going off to an asteroid (or to Genosha for Fun Summer Antics With Charles) and asking to be left alone is looking rather good. Yes, Magneto probably does have a mental illness and can't make a plan for toffee, but that doesn't get people off the hook in everyday life, and he wouldn't accept it in any case. Maybe he should just kidnap Cyclops and they can work together to create a really great plan that, for once, won't fail the second people fail to do exactly what Magneto told them.
4. Everyone in X3 who fights one-on-one
Haven't any of you seen ninja movies? What happened to all that teamwork? All those hours you supposedly spend in the Danger Room? The fighting is so bad that when Wolverine, Colossus and Beast actually do use some really basic teamwork, it's a huge surprise. Storm and Iceman are the worst offenders here: each could have taken out the other's opponent with ease, but they took up personal grudges instead. This is not Jerry Springer. There are no chairs.
5. Daredevil faking his own death just so his friends stop teasing him about his incredibly ugly new costume (Series 1, #325)
I'd talk about Kevin Smith's arc, but the writer's string-pulling is so blatant there that I can't blame the characters for bad decisions. Instead, I'm going to go for the remarkably bad Chichester run back in the early 90's. Ben Urich's files were hacked by a whizz-kid journalist, Sarah, and she was going to prove Matt was Daredevil (yes, this does happen quite a lot). Ben Urich warns Matt, and gets Sarah hauled off by the FBI, but Matt still decides it would be way fun to fake his own death, via a convenient plot device furnishing him with a dead body double. Oh yes, and he's going to get rid of the classic red costume in favour of a grey and red BMX riding suit. (I'm talking to you, current Spider-Man writers.) Then, sadly, he decided to live on the streets and fight crime. This was all shamelessly retconned within 25 issues. Especially the part where Matt's new civilian identity was... "Jack Batlin". It's the kind of comic that makes you ashamed to be a geek.
