Got a question for y’all. What is one media that you watched as a kid that was marketed for kids, but didn’t realize until years later that it was more for/would be appreciated more by adults? It can’t just be from your childhood, it has to be marketed towards kids, so it can’t be something like “Hellsing” or “The Mummy”.
My answer: The Incredibles
* Calls out insurance companies for screwing over people
* Main villain gets chopped up by an engine
* Bob and Helen’s conflict is written like a cheating plot, with Mirage as the “mistress”
* Bob’s main arc is basically a mid-life crisis
* That one uncomfortable scene where Bob and Helen are arguing about Bob’s mid-life crisis and that he’s neglecting his son, which ends up scaring the kids
* The level of violence. We got an attempted suicide, dozens of supers are violently killed off-screen, the villain gets chopped into pieces, gunfire, kids getting attacked, and so on
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I think that Evelyn and Mirage bring out the best and the worst in each other in turns
Part of the appeal of the ship for me at least is that I think that there's a lot of mystery surrounding Mirage as a character and her motivations while she was working for Syndrome.
She's got these really distinct lines regarding human life that aren't entirely clear or at all explained. She's really upset about the jet explosion with Helen and the kids but is aware of and enables all the intimate details of the Superhero genocide plot with Syndrome.
She is very heavily composed and plays things very close to her chest, unlike Syndrome we don't get any sort of flash back scene or monologues discussing her involvement and motivation in the operation. She's super competent at what she does and goes unnoticed in Bob's insurance office at the start of the film and is crucial in convincing Bob and probably every other super to go off to Nomanisan and die fighting Omnidroids. And why?
It's never explained.
She is in five minutes of the film but is one of the most important characters in it.
Let's get into what she does do. She's critical to the operations of project Kronos. She does recon, spying on Bob and Lucius and blending in to the office to track them and communicate back to Syndrome and pick their next victim.
She reaches out to them, and feeds him the lie about being a top secret government agency, testing out an "experimental robot". The government agency bit is debatable, but the experimental robot is an outright lie. There is no way that Mirage is as involved as she is with Kronos and considers her work to not be about death battles with superheros.
She finds Mr. Incredible when Helen activates the honing signal. This means that she's had access to the computer room all along, further evidence of her knowing involvement in Project Kronos.
We next see her when Bob is trapped in Syndrome's energy torture device, sitting at one of the two control chairs with a different flunky that is in the uniform that we see all the other cronies in. Both of their podiums are identical, with the unnamed technician being directed to torture Mr. Incredible throughout the scene by Syndrome pointing to him.
It's not entirely clear to what extent Mirage is ok with the torture that's going on in the cell but it's clearly not a deal breaker despite Syndrome not asking her to do it this time because she could easily be doing so from her desk.
Syndrome reaches over her to launch missiles at Helen and the kids and we get to hear Mirage at her most upset when she says that the hit was confirmed, no survivors. So she has the capability to launch missiles for her boss but again, Syndrome wouldn't ask her to launch them at kids.
Despite believing Syndrome to have murdered children Mirage still pushed him away from Bob, at great risk to herself.
So there's possibly romantic relationship with Syndrome but eh? We don't get a lot of scenes with them together and while it's pretty visible from his perspective, he's very physical while trying to reassure her that he has the situation under control, she just seems disgusted by this. This is the only moment we see them be at all physically intimate.
But there is one other moment that I think indicates some level of intimacy between them. Right after Mr. Incredible threatens to crush her, Syndrome taunts his old hero.
"Mirage drops to the floor. Syndrome looks at Bob and sneers.
SYNDROME:I knew you couldn't do it. Even when you have nothing to lose. You're weak. I've outgrown you."
Mirage is following Syndrome out of the room while he says this and her eyes widen when she hears this.
This kind of ambiguous moment leads to the incredible scene where she tells him off for what he did to her.
Mirage: Valuing life is not weakness
Syndrome: Oh hey look, if you're talking about what happened in the containment unit, I had everything under control.
Mirage: And disregarding it is not strength.
She has more total moments of flirtation with Bob, but we can infer that much of the flirtation with Bob is a ruse, part of the Omnidroid plot. So we're left with very little information.
So a round-up
She supported super genocide, if not in purpose, definitely in action.
She's willing to be in the same room while torture is happening and has the ability if not the will to engage in murder and torture for Syndrome.
She's not ok with civilian or child murder.
She has some level of intimacy with Syndrome.
She was willing to risk her life to save him from Bob
She ultimately swaps sides because of Syndrome 's callous disregard for life, including hers and risks his wrath to rescue the Incredibles super family
And I think that all of this leads to a super interesting character who would empathize with Evelyn.
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