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mnemosynes · 6 months

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I know TV mechanics very well so I'm approaching from that angle. There have been several canon TV endgames that are obligatory and almost all of them are when a lead is paired with a recurring or supporting. Just practically, the show has to work harder when screen time is lop-sided. The relationship is given lip service in these situations without the onscreeen development. Established relationships actually makes it easier for a plotty show to do this because they can say that they're married and reconciled and move on to the plot.

If Celeborn gets upgraded to a lead character in the later seasons, what I said doesn't apply. But if Tolkien didn't do it and Peter Jackson didn't do it (deciding even to focus on Galadriel/Gandalf when he got the chance) I don't see TROP, having chosen Galadriel and Sauron as the pin on which the show resides, being the outlier to the precedent already set.

I think he gets good characterization in his introduction to the series. We have to know who he is. But again, he's recurring IIRC with many other people fighting for screentime in an 8 episode show.

Then there's how Amazon will handle pandering to two sections of the fanbase: the LOTR fanboys and shippers.

The most popular ship that's gotten them positive publicity is between two leads and it involves Celeborn's wife. Amazon backed off from their initial plausible denials of a romance once they saw that the relationship was a hit in the trades/mags and on social media.

My guess? They'll play both sides to appease everyone.

"It's a cosmic connection and they'll get the scenes about their relationship and most importantly narrative significance. But no one can get mad because it's not a romance."

"We've told you Galadriel is married and reunited so don't get mad if scenes devoted to her relationship aren't center stage; this show isnt about romance".

It'll be show vs tell and many TV writers do this especially for queerbaiting ships because those ships rely entirely on subtext. Those ships would be the emotional crux of their shows while the characters have husbands or wives.

The way they've handled Celeborn already is a big indication to me. Introducing Celeborn a season after is a deliberate handicap the writers gave the character. He should've been mentioned from the moment Finrod's death was and he wasn't. 'My husband is presumed dead' doesn't come up in narration. Elrond never mentions it. It's only Finrod that explicitly drives Galadriel within her arc. For the viewer, he's handicapped from the start. I'd love to pick TROP showrunners' brain about why they ignored Celeborn's existence in the show until the penultimate episode. I have a feeling why and it's part viewer manipulation.

Some thoughts on what Rings of Power might be doing with Celeborn

Wrote this a couple of months ago, so I'm reposting it here now I'm here. Despite the dudebros on Reddit wishing Celeborn back so that he'll be the bestest strongest fightingest elf ever, I don't think that is what TROP have set him up for so far in the clues we have, and I think that's probably a Good Thing.

This show loves using visual imagery to allude to some canonical event it doesn’t have the rights or time to deal with. Here, Galadriel in Valinor is fighting with other elves, possibly her cousins (is the red-haired elf kid meant to make us think of a young Maedhros or Amrod or Amras?) over swan-ships. It’s not the Kinslaying at Alqualondë but it’s clearly meant as a nod to that:

And it tells you something about her personality, whether or not you know that story.

Here, she’s leading her company over the ice. It’s Forodwaith, not the crossing over the Helcaraxë that brought her to Middle-earth, but it’s meant to tell you the same things about her that that story tells: her bravery, her stubbornness, her position as a leader, and her will to press on:

And here she is on a battlefield after a battle.

The battle itself when we see it is… maybe meant to feel like the Nírnaeth Arnoediad, which was a huge disaster for the elves. (The helmet Galadriel’s holding has a Feanorian star on it - near her little finger if you zoom in.) But I think the visual imagery of the aftermath is meant to feel like something different.

Above, Galadriel’s battlefield; below, the Somme, where Tolkien fought.

I don't think this battle is meant to be an allegory for the Somme, but I think it's meant to call to mind similar things: the hell and waste and devastation of battle, on a scale that the people involved had not imagined possible.

One of the few things we know about TROP Celeborn at this point is that he rode away to a battle (unnamed) and never came back. Galadriel must presume he’s dead; look at the devastation around her and you can see why. A few people have theorised that the reason she's in her white dress in these scenes is that she's searching for him. If that's so, we know she doesn't find him. It's also implied that 'the war' he went off to is this one against Morgoth but it's not explained why he went: in book canon he's not Noldor and his king forbade any of his people to fight alongside them, on the grounds they had already brought too much death and devastation as it was.

Whyever he went to battle, we also know that he went underestimating it and unprepared for it. When she mentions him going to war says that his armour didn’t fit and that she teased him for it. She says ‘the war seemed so very far away’. If she’s in Doriath at this time, which isn’t named but sounds likely, then this must be especially so: the Doriath version of Celeborn (he has different origin stories) has lived his whole life in a magically protected land of peace and loveliness surrounded by a continent of war. And then he went to a battle that presumably looked like the one above, and never came back.

That, for Tolkien’s generation, was the story of a lot of men going off to the First World War. The gulf between expectation and reality at the start of the war was immense and while many wars in many places have that cultural memory, this one was the big one for Tolkien’s generation. Many people really believed when the war began in 1914 that it would be ‘over by Christmas’, lots of young men enthusiastically joined up to do their country proud (including boys lying about their age, they were so keen to go) and the soldiers - and the country as a whole - were massively unprepared for the scale and horror of modern, industrialised warfare. Tolkien went to war in 1916; he wrote later (in the LOTR preface) that by 1918, all but one of his close friends were dead.

The war was a huge influence on his work. Sometimes directly inspired (he wrote that the Dead Marshes in Lord of the Rings ‘owe something to Northern France after the Battle of the Somme’), sometimes more indirectly, like in this from Christopher Tolkien:

‘He told me once that he began The Silmarillion ‘in army huts, crowded, filled with the noise of gramophones’; indeed some lines of verse in which appear the Seven Names of Gondolin are scribbled on the back of a paper setting out the chain of responsibility in a battalion.’ In TROP, Galadriel’s line to Theo that she met Celeborn when he saw her dancing in a glade of flowers is meant to be a shorthand reference to Beren and Lúthien. But this part of Beren and Lúthien’s story was also inspired by Tolkien’s own life during the war: his wife Edith dancing for him in the woods in Yorkshire, in 1917, when he was home from the trenches recovering from illness.

Again I don’t think TROP is trying to show a literal allegory for the Somme and the war, but I think it’s trying to show something that feels like it, both in that devastated battlefield and in the idea of brave and idealistic young soldiers keen to go off to a distant war that they’re unprepared for and can’t possibly comprehend the horror of. Because it was so important and so formative for Tolkien, and because the writers want to glorify courage without glorifying war.

So: Celeborn. In TROP he went away to the war but we know he’s not dead, even though Galadriel reasonably thinks he must be. And they have a reasonable amount of leeway to play with him as a character around that because… well, Tolkien needed a Mr Galadriel and didn’t care that much about fleshing Celeborn out. He fights in the Second Age, he’s ‘wise’, and he really dislikes dwarves.

The dwarf thing you can read as just elf-dwarf antagonism, but if you want to put some texture behind it then you can read it as a legacy of the dwarves fighting with the elves in Doriath and killing their king, Celeborn’s relative. This does not make it okay for him to be rude to Gimli in LOTR and blame him for bringing trouble to Lothlorien - which Galadriel slaps him down for in front of everyone - but it does make him more interesting, if part of his character is that he’s still haunted by the wars of the First Age, if his desire to keep Lothlorien a little island of safety is always countered by his memory of how this failed with Doriath. And if we are going to be at all invested in him as a character in TROP they will want him to be interesting.

TV audiences don’t generally find established relationships that interesting, LOTR Celeborn is just not that fleshed out or interesting a character to begin with (which is fine! he's basically a background elf there! he's fine with that!), and so TV storytelling would require more than "yay happy reunion" if it’s going to create any kind of interest at all in what we all know is the canon endgame pairing. They aren’t going to use Celeborn to ditch the Galadriel and Sauron connection (which the creators have been explicit about building the whole show on), but she's got to end up with him without making everyone think "who?" or feeling sorry for her. So my bet is that if he is indeed coming in season 2, they'll a) give him his own storyline, separate from hers, and b) create some kind of tension in their relationship.

And so: where is he? In show continuity he's been missing for centuries at this point. Much of the fandom speculation is that he’s been held prisoner by Sauron or by Adar. I can’t quite see how this fits plot-wise - the only prisoners we know that either of them have are the elves digging the tunnels for Adar, who (if we believe what he says about Sauron’s work) haven’t been doing this for all that long. Sauron does canonically have a habit of putting enemies in prisons and then keeping them there indefinitely but TROP Sauron doesn’t have any fortresses with prisons that we know about and doesn’t seem in a place where he’s got that kind of power. Perhaps in Rhûn, where it seems there’s a Sauron cult? Although there’s no obvious reason why Celeborn would be there or what the purpose would be of keeping him.

Also, coming back from literal centuries of captivity and torture or whatever else is going to make it difficult for his plot to be about anything other than that and his recovery from that, because: centuries. Maedhros was held captive for thirty years and begged Fingon to kill him. What’s three hundred years going to do? Seems unlikely Celeborn would be swooping right back into the action in any sense, or be recognisably himself at all.

But. Assuming the show wants us to be interested in him as his own character rather than just as a plotdevice to stop Galadriel getting a bit too close to the Dark Lord. And assuming we’re still supposed to see him as a casualty of war, but in another sense than dying.

Maybe what’s keeping him from Galadriel - and the Noldor, and the war that Gil-galad is leading - isn’t that he’s locked in prison and can’t get there. Maybe he’s staying away from it all, including her, on purpose. And maybe he’ll get his own storyline, where he isn’t just Mr Galadriel, where we get to see why and how he finds his way back?

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mnemosynes · 3 years

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All this for a guy whose original casting was for a Native actor and instead went to white man Tyler. All this for a whitewashed character. All this for a guy who took a job opportunity from a Native actor.

The Alex Manes/Tyler Blackburn stans on the Roswell New Mexico tag…. Fucking hell. The constant non-stop whining.

And the constant Maria hate from these asshats. You guys wanted her away from Alex and Malex and you got it, so why the anger at the character simply existing? Alex does not own Greg, Kyle or Michael. These characters can have relationships and plots independent of Alex. Michael can develop a friendship with Kyle and grow because of it, Greg can have a romance with Maria and that’s okay and Maria and Kyle have always been good friends. Not every freaking thing in this show revolves around Alex.

The slut shaming if Maria has scenes with Greg or Kyle - why is she flirting with them etc. Shut the fuck up and take your vile trash opinions off the tag.

Maria Deluca is not responsible for Alex having a separate DeepSky plot. Take that up with the writers. I notice that Kyle does not get as much hate for having screentime like Maria - it’s always black women to blame for white faves not getting screentime. They make for easier targets because it’s just casually accepted in fandom with no pushback.

Maria gets hate if she has screentime, she gets hate as being underdeveloped if she has no screentime, she gets hate for simply being friends with other characters, for having scenes with Kyle and Greg, she gets hate for not being a good friend, she gets hate for being a good friend. Some people are not going to be happy unless Maria’s entire story forever is her doing penance to Alex Manes. And like move on ffs. The characters already have and constantly whining about how Maria/Michael did not apologize to Alex for some perceived slight is not going to make that happen.

And it’s not the complaining about Alex not being in the episode that’s the problem. It’s the whining about other characters getting plot and screentime - Why is Michael having scenes with Kyle? It should be Alex. Why is Maria having scenes with Greg? It should be Alex. Why is Jones having a dog? It should be Alex. Bugger off.

If you want to whine about Maria taking away screentime from your bland white faves, at least take it off the main tags.

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mnemosynes · 3 years

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I was reminded of the whitewashing and goywashing that Fox and Disney did so let me rec one of the best fics I've read that gave Dadneto, Cherik, tied in Magneto's experience as a Holocaust survivor, and Peter's relationship to his history.

The first fic is from Peter's POV and the second from Erik's. The latter is in a Jewish Comics Day collection.

The first is hard to read because it is written as chaotic as how Peter probably thinks but it is worth it.

The Building of The House series by kvikindi

*The Building of The House - So this is the story of how Peter finds and loses his father, sort of.

*Tehillim - Erik, in Israel, afterwards: another life he could have had. If.

#peter maximoff #erik lehnsherr #xmen

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mnemosynes · 3 years

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But they didn't introduce the multiverse. The closest the MCU got was with Mysterio lying about the multiverse in Spiderman and the Dr. Strange movie title. Canonically, they refused to acknowledge the multiverse in Wandavision. He was Ralph and not any version of Pietro.

Practically it is not going to happen. The X-Men, when they get rebooted by Marvel, are going to be IN the Marvel universe. The MCU already has a Wanda and it had a Pietro. They're not going to bring in a new Wanda and Pietro to exist alongside Elizabeth Olsen Wanda and ATJ's dead Pietro. Why would they? They gain nothing except confusing their normie audience. Wandavision is very popular and Lizzie's Wanda is popular now. Like it or not. Disney is not going to recast or even have a new untested version played by a new actress that didn't even exist in another universe show up as another Wanda. It makes no sense for them to do so. They wouldn't even let Evan play Pietro in the MCU and that's a fan favorite version.

It makes even less sense to think they would do it ethnically accurate because Disney doesn't care. They've spit in the twins' comics faces by having the MCU twins work for Hydra, and they cast white people when they had the chance in AOU. With Elizabeth Olsen being as popular as she is now, and with her show doing so well, they're never going to bring in a new actress who doesn't have established popularity or hype to "challenge" her position. Come on now. The same goes for ATJ's Pietro. His death is so tied to Wanda's development that I don't see it being reversed or replaced. They wouldn't even let Evan be a Pietro and he had an existing popularity. A new guy isn't coming in to be a Pietro.

Magneto having never been in the MCU could be cast right but again this is not a a goal of Disney's and if it happens, it will be a coincidence.

whitewashing the x-men

im allowed to like peter maximoff as a character and still hate the racism that comes with whitewashing the comic book character who was jewish yet was never portrayed by a jewish actor. same with magneto. micheal fassbenders performance is amazing but they still shouldve cast a jewish actor to play him as his main story arc is bring a traumatised jewish man who survived the holocaust and therefore doesn't trust humans to not treat mutants like they did the jews. i love the characters snd the actors but i cant deny how racist fox is by not casting the right minorities for minority roles, and i cant excuse the blatant whitewashing of pietro by renaming him to seem more american.

i love the fox x-men, its a beautiful universe with beautiful stories and characters but i won't excuse the blatant racist flaws. neither should you. as much as i love evan peters and micheal fassbender i cant be on board with casting them as the roles again now that disney owns them. they already whitewashed wanda, now is the time to correct those wrongs and represent the minorities correctly.

#Also why would Evan or Michael be the roles again?#They exist in the Fox universe #Feige's X-Men are going to be brand new #This is a well intentioned post but it's not practical on any level

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mnemosynes · 3 years

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Wanda and Pietro already exist in the MCU. Those roles aren't getting recast. Magneto is up for grabs though.

whitewashing the x-men

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mnemosynes · 4 years

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If people had no problems with behind the scenes drama interfering with how characters were written for years, if people internalized Izzie’s actions as Izzie being awful vs Izzie’s actions happened while KH and Shonda were at war, then how can you be aghast at Alex being OOC now?

"Alex would never behave like this the writers made him do this” while simultaneously saying “Izzie was awful/she treated Alex awfully in how she left”

So it’s the writing’s fault that Justin’s exit made Alex an awful human whereas Izzie’s character was not affected by BTS at all.

If you can give consideration to Alex’s character, you can give the same consideration to Izzie’s.

#izzie stevens #alex karev #izzex #grey's anatomy

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mnemosynes · 5 years

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I didn’t want to be the Vogue woman. I didn’t want to be the woman who came in with the sexualized. Every time you see that sexual, mysterious, kind of cold woman, she always looks like she jumps out of bed with that blow-dried hair and that dewy skin and, you know, those Double-Zero clothes. I did not want to be that woman because I don’t know that woman. And I’ve been watching that woman in movies for several years. And I felt like this was my chance to woman up. I want to present women as they really are. It’s not always about being pretty. But it is about uncovering and feeling comfortable with the way we are and the way we look when we’re in private. You know, as soon as you walk through the door, what do you do? You take off your bra, you let your titties sag, you let your hair come off. I don’t have any eyebrows. I let my eyebrows be exactly what they are. And it’s me. And I wanted that scene to be somewhere in the narrative of Annalise. That who she is in her public life and who she was in her private life were absolutely, completely diametrically opposed to one another. Because that’s who we are as people. We wear the mask that grins and lies.

— Viola Davis for The Wrap on the iconic Wig Scene.

#viola davis

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mnemosynes · 5 years

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I’ll call out implied racism anytime I feel like it. Two WOC read your post and saw it because of the double standards this fandom consistently has with Elektra and her relationship with a white man, over said white man’s relationships with virtually every other person. You only felt the need to police how fans react to Matt/Elektra’s relationship though so what’s that about?

Fandom is still for white people because y’all apparently “get” it according to this post but you still validate white supremacist stories. I don’t care if you suddenly get it when you’re called out on it. I don’t care. If you got it, you wouldn’t have dallied in racist talking points in the first place.

So here’s the thing… relationships (and ‘shipping) are not a zero-sum game.

You can recognise how important Elektra is to Matt Murdock without denying the sweetness of Matt and Karen’s friendship turned romance. You can be wistful about Claire moving on from Matt with Luke, while still loving Claire and Luke’s dynamic. You can still ‘ship Luke and Jessica like FedEx, without feeling left behind because Luke moved on with Claire. You can still love Matt and Elektra while acknowledging that it is a toxic relationship with no future for either of them. And you can revel in Karen and Frank’s friendship that may be more, without pretending how her time with Matt wasn’t real and important to them both.

Because all of these stories inform the characters, facilitate growth, play with contradictions and morality, sex for its own sake, love being both selfish and selfless.

Relationships do not need to be happy (or healthy), to be enjoyed. They do not need to be ‘built to last’, to be worth your time. It’s not about who ‘wins’, is ‘endgame’, or whatever. Not to the characters, and not to the story.

Just maybe try and remember that.

Because sometimes tunnel vision hurts you more than you realise, and you miss all the things that make the story worth telling, if you’re only interested in who makes it to the ‘happily ever after’.

#fandom is for white people!!!!!

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mnemosynes · 5 years

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Dick and Kory fight Deathstroke in Titans 2x05

#Kory Anders #Titans #Starfire #Koriand'r #Dick Grayson #DickKory

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mnemosynes · 5 years

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Kory really is the only person in this whole team with brain cells huh

#the only one #koriand'r #kory anders #starfire #titans

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mnemosynes · 5 years

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to expand on what i said here:

white people, you and yours need to remember that just because you’re a ~big fan~ of characters of color, just because you ~make so many ship posts~, that doesn’t absolve you of the bad that you may do. that doesn’t excuse you from being critical of your own fandom presence and fandom capital.

the most dehumanizing, demeaning, and disgusting treatment i’ve seen of sam wilson and finn come not from malicious racists, but from vocal white allies who are incredibly proud about their status as being ~big name “sam wilson and finn and t'challa and poe dameron and helen cho wow do i sure love the brown folk!!” fans~.

i’ve seen white fans very clearly use these characters of color to play out white savior complexes. i’ve seen white fans say, “protect [characters of color!!]” and then in the same breath, fetishize those very same characters of color.

i’ve seen white fans priding themselves on ~calling out fandom racism~ but then turn around and say, “i’m just so glad scarjo is going to be the major, because my favorite actress is going to be playing my favorite ghost in the shell character!!”

i’ve seen white fans use the term “klandom,” as if they’re not white. i’ve seen white people reblog intracommunity posts that are very much not meant for them. i’ve seen white people very intentionally use characters/real people of color for their user icons and leave out the fact that they’re white in their about me pages.

i’ve seen white people in fandom talking about how gross malicious fandom racism is, and then turn around and appropriate and fetishize a myriad of asian cultures without seeing a problem there.

i’ve seen white people in fandom speak over people of color about their own marginalization. i’ve had white people in fandom (and other non-asian people of color, to be fair) speak over me and act as a ~voice for the asian community~ while my own posts about racism in fandom - posts that draw from my own lived experience - go nowhere.

white savior complexes in fandom are real. rachael dolezal syndrome in fandom is real. ally theater in fandom is so, so real.

and just because you ship finn/rey or call sam wilson your ~pwecious baby birb pwince~ or posted ONCE about how the doctor strange trailer relies on orientalism and cultural fetishism, just because you reblog this post, doesn’t make you a good ally.

that lies in your actions and thinking CRITICALLY on your motivations as to your actions and the impact of your behavior and actions in fandom. only then may you even BEGIN to be a “good ally.” allyship is a constant act and it requires constant analysis of your own privilege and power. it’s hard. it’s complex. it’s constant.

but it sure as hell doesn’t start and end with “i’m gonna ship this character of color.” allyship - radical political activism - is a little harder than that.

#fandom is for white people

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mnemosynes · 5 years

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Did you guys know MCU Elektra put the burden of her being good on Matt’s shoulders? Did you know this showed how selfish her love was to put the burden of not taking lives on Matt’s shoulders?

This is a new one. And it’s not true.

Matt is the one that placed conditions on Elektra being with him. And when she couldn’t keep those conditions, he shut her out completely and asked her to leave. She left. And then he chased her down. He got involved in her life again. He believed in her goodness of his own volition. In the finale, Matt is the one that asked to go with Elektra. Her response was disbelief and an attempt to dissuade him.

Elektra is not responsible for Matt imposing his black and white morality, his Christianity, on her. She is not responsible for Matt’s guilt. She didn’t force Matt to be her morality chain.

This, in particular, is a gross centering of the white male protagonist, to the point that his woc love interest is blamed for actions he took alone!

#elektra natchios #matt murdock #fandom is for white people #daredevil

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mnemosynes · 5 years

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Misty Knight’s entire occupation in both Luke Cage and The Defenders is play the clueless policeman, constantly left out of the loop. The writing deliberately puts her in positions where she looks foolish and is always one step behind everyone for no reason other than a lack of interest. The woman she was supposed to be protecting from Mariah Dillard (Candace Miller in Luke Cage) is killed as a result of her ignorance (leaving her unprotected), and Candice’s brother, who she also wants to help, follows suit in The Defenders (off-screen, ffs) following his arrest at a murder scene (this happens on Luke’s watch). Every time she goes to bat for Luke, she’s left looking like a fool when he contradicts her actions and her career as an officer is constantly put in jeopardy (she talks about her recent position like its demotion). The moment she loses her arm makes her look like an incompetent officer of the law, and was, of all things, in the middle of a poorly choreographed fight between Colleen Wing and her mentor, Bakuto, instead of occurring someplace integral to her character (which makes me think I would’ve been okay with her losing her arm in Luke Cage s1 as opposed how she lost it.)

Claire Temple’s character arc was all but left behind in the first season of Daredevil, and Luke Cage, and her other recent appearances (Jessica Jones, Daredevil s2, Iron Fist and The Defenders) pretty much just make her the superhero cheerleader who constantly has to give these people pep talks. Her weary reactions to superhero hi-jinks (”stupid people run into burning buildings” / “Luke, you don’t have to be everybody’s hero”) is meant to endear her to the audience to her (and that works), but it shows the writers have no real problems with using her to further everyone’s arc but her own, and like, really, Claire shouldn’t just show up in other shows just to say “believe in yourself, never surrender” because she’s not the focus of the plot.

The three non-white members of the Hand (Muramaki, Gao, Bakuto) are given little to nothing to do except complain and die. The sole Black member of the group (Sowande) is brutally killed and beheaded by Stick (walking garbage himself). Barring Madam Gao, everybody is pretty much cannon fodder for the lack of plot.

Malcolm just appears in a couple episodes to remind you that Jessica had a Black Best Friend™ that was also on the receiving end of her emotional bullshit. He really doesn’t contribute anything tot he show besides fixing up Jessica’s apartment yet again.

Colleen Wing spends most of her time shouting “I’m important! I’m important to the plot!” and the narrative pretty much laughs at her and says “that sounds fake, but okay”. She fits in the plot like a broken puzzle piece missing its other half.

Elektra’s entire character arc continues to revolve around her dehumanization, and the whole “I’m The Black Sky” spiel is never explained or explored, which renders the dramatics about it completely null (esp.when you consider she was supposed to have been an lit. “object of worship” and not a hitman). The only real kind of retribution she gets from being subjugated to emotional and physical manipulation is when she finally gets to kill Stick (good riddance to garbage), and stabs Alexandra Reid in the back and beheads her. When the plot decides to make her the villain of the final two episodes makes very little sense. Esp. when you consider her only basic motive is to live forever outside the control of others, and she’s quite literally leading The Hand to their demise. Her efforts are undermined by her suddenly being okay with a building collapsing on her and the show not addressing her whereabouts following said building collapse, but, hey, it’s okay, Daredevil made it out tho.

Luke Cage spends most of his time in The Defenders playing babysitter to a hapless white boy. The writer’s deliberately use Luke as means to get audiences who loathe Iron Fist to like Iron Fist (and lets be real, audiences within mcu fandom bends like branches the wind, so it worked). As previously mentioned, Luke is used as a mouthpiece to “address” the racism and white privilege that Danny Rand embodies, but the show has no intention of actually dealing with it in any meaningful way (and by meaningful I mean, killing Danny Rand and erasing him from the universe) like it allowed Elektra to deal with her abusers.

Luke really doesn’t do a lot interacting with anyone of any particular meaning in his story (Jessica Jones or Claire Temple) when it’s not about exposition of the episode’s plot.

His abuse during his brief relationship with Jessica is all but swept under the rug with a “I gotta move on” and a “coffee” joke, they really don’t address it. Luke Cage as a character pretty much gets the rawest deal out of any of the characters in The Defenders, because Wonder Bread Fist has pretty much been glued to his ass for all eternity (I hear he’s gonna show up in LC S2). I dunno about anyone else, but that kills my interest in the character a great deal.

#fandom is for white people #i hate that i love these characters and i hate their universe #i'm glad it's cancelled but i miss them

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