С форума тивитропов про логику в МСЮ и Диси

Stark: Does anyone have any awesome secret powers they haven't revealed yet?

Romanov: Hey Tony, whatever happened to Veronica?

Stark: Who? I don't know, probably hates my guts, I didn't keep track of them before Pepper.

Romanov: What? No, I meant—

Stark: I know you like matchmaking during fights but this isn't really the time!

 

Vision: You can't defeat me, Clint.

Hawkeye: No, but she can.

Scarlet Witch: ...yeah, probably, but I already told you I'm not going. I don't know what you were expecting to happen here.

 

Cap: I'm the оnly person who can capture Bucky alive and you know that.

Nat: Maybe, but you won't sign the Accords.

Cap: That doesn't matter. I should be the оne оn this mission.

Nat: And that might be possible if you sign the Accords.

Cap: You know I can't sign the Accords.

Nat: No, Steve, you won't sign the Accords, not you can't. And you don't get to go оn the mission if you won't sign. That's how it works now.

Cap: But I have to be оn this mission.

Nat: Then sign the Accords!

Cap: Fine, if that's what it takes, I'll do it!

One scene later

Cap: There, I signed the Accords. So, I'm оn the mission?

Ross: After the mess you've made every time you've fought Bucky? You've never beaten him, you actually gave up and let him win оn оne occasion, why would I ever send you in оn this?

Cap: Because I'm literally the оnly person who could ever defeat him.

Ross: That is provably wrong.

Cap: Anyone you send after him is going to—

Rhodey: (over radio) Secretary Ross? Reporting in to let you know I've captured the target and am en route back to base. He was fighting some guy in a cat suit but they both came in after I cornered them.

Ross: (smug glare)

Cap: I could've done it if we hadn't wasted all this time.

 

I have to laugh a little when I think about Bruce and Diana chatting about the metahuman files, as Batman was supposed to be оn the rooftop challenging Superman with the batsignal at the time. It's a mental image of Batman in full armor, bored waiting for Superman to show up and texting her.

 

Sam: Now, I don't mean to tell you how to do your job, but I think we need to really talk about this plan.

Steve: We're going to find Zemo, take out him and his surplus Winter Soldiers, and save the day. What's to talk about?

Sam: The part where there's six Winter Soldiers. Maybe you don't remember, but I remember this guy ripping off оne of my wings and throwing me off the Helicarrier. Now I'm pretty badass myself, but he rolled through me like I was made of construction paper.

Bucky: That's true. I wouldn't even call what happened a fight.

Steve: You won't be alone, Sam. All of us are going to be there fighting them together.

Sam: That's the thing. Apparently these guys make Bucky look like an amateur and there's going to be six of them? And we've got what? A reasonably good archer? No offense, man.

Clint: It's cool.

Sam: There's as many of them as there are of us and none of us have any shot at winning a fight with any оne of them. We're banking all our hopes here оn Wanda to take them all out simultaneously.

Wanda: Wait, Clint said I could go to high school if I came with him. He said nothing about fighting Super-Buckies.

Steve: Wait, you promised her what?

Clint: I mean, when this is all over, she can have a normal life and not be used as a weapon. Just as soon as we finish using her as a weapon. Right?

Sam: Goddammit, Clint, we are fugitives from the law right now. You broke her out of a secure government facility. What part of this gave you the impression that we were all going to have normal lives afterwards?!

Clint: The part where we beat the bad guys and then go home to our families. Is that not what we're doing? I kinda missed...everything, really.

Scott: Right there with you, buddy.

Sam: No. We don't get to go home to our families. We're going to be оn the run until we somehow find a way to defeat the Sokovia Accords. No normal lives, no high school.

Scott: Are you even young enough for high school?

Wanda: Honestly, nobody seems to be sure.

Sam: And that's if we all don't die fighting six guys we have no possible way of beating.

Bucky: Steve, man. You know I love you. You're my brother. But he's not wrong.

Steve: Look, they may be insurmountable. This may be impossible. We may be walking into sudden death with no plan or hope of victory. But we'll win anyway because we'll do it together.

Sam: So will they. There's six of them. Look, all I'm saying is that maybe we would have a better shot at doing this if we had a flying, missile-launching tank or two. And that guy with the weird cat fetish who nearly fed Bucky his own spine.

Bucky: Yeah, that guy was pretty tough. I finally get why Hydra kept me out of Wakanda.

Wanda: Vision could probably take оne or two Winter Soldiers оn his own.

Steve: Guys. We don't need people who might have a chance at defeating Winter Soldiers. We have teamwork. And that's the оnly thing that matters.

Sam: Fine. I'll do this because I trust you. Same reason I've done everything since the Accords started. But so help me, the moment I think you're оn a suicide mission, I am rolling оn you to Tony.

Steve: That's fair.

 

The plot in summary:

FISK: I killed Anatoly for no good reason.

NOBU: The f*ck is wrong with you?!

OWSLEY: Good job, you screwed up our relationship with the Russians.

FISK: Yeah, but then I bombed the Russians and had Vladimir killed, so we’re good.

NOBU: I don’t think you understand this whole “Crime Empire” thing.

FISK: I’d like to see you do better.

NOBU: Fine, I will. *dies*

FISK: Nobu’s dead now.

OWSLEY: Oh good, with the Russians and the Japanese gone, we've lost any actual violent threat our organization could pose. We have been reduced to an old accountant, a mysterious Chinese drug manufacturer, and a fat man whose entire organization seems to consist of оne charmingly entertaining fellow who is probably more enjoyable to listen to than the entire rest of us combined.

GAO: I am beginning to have serious concerns with your ability to run this group. Remind me how you became the authority figure here?

FISK: Well, the thing about that is, oh look, the masked guy is attacking your operation.

GAO: F*ck this, I’m out. Peace, bitches.

OWSLEY: That was sudden. So. You and me.

FISK: Basic pattern recognition suggests I’m going to kill you for some reason.

OWSLEY: I tried to poison you and your girlfriend to kill оnLY HER.

FISK: Good enough.

OWSLEY: But wait! I have a plan in place that will take you down if you kill me. Like you said, pattern recognition, and this series is going to need some villains next season. I’m a pretty big shot in the comics too, so, y’know, I guess this is where we part ways and have an awesome gang war оnce the next season rolls around.

FISK: Nope, killing you now.

OWSLEY: But I literally just explained to you five seconds ago how that’s career suicide.

FISK: CAREER SUICIDE IS MY MIDDLE NAME! *kills Owsley*

 

STICK: You're getting lazy. You've made no progress towards rooting out The Hand since Elektra died. You can't spend the rest of your life grieving.

MURDOCK: I'm not. I just realized something. This isn't any of my business.

STICK: Not your—have you even been listening to a word I've said?!

MURDOCK: I'm a lawyer. At night, I punch crime. You've been rambling about secret societies and shadow wars and the end of the world, and it finally hit me that I don't care.

STICK: The Hand must be stopped. Do you know what would happen if they were allowed to succeed.

MURDOCK: I know exactly what would happen. They would become a threat to the world.

STICK: How can you justify doing nothing?

MURDOCK: Because I'm a street ninja. I don't deal with threats to the world. оnce they become big enough to try for a global footprint, they're going to become a blip оn Iron Man's radar. They're going to get noticed by Thor. Or maybe S.H.I.E.L.D. will catch wind of something. We're part of a bigger universe, Stick, and nobody threatens the entire world without the Avengers shoving the Hulk's fist down their throat. So, you're saying that The Hand is going to cross that line? Good. I say, "Let them."

Five days later

CAPTAIN AMERICA: You called us here to talk about ninjas?

IRON MAN: Yeah, F.R.I.D.A.Y. found these racist caricatures sneaking around my lab. We electrified the room. It was hilarious.

 

That exact parallel is part of why Kilgrave was so menacing; he's so accustomed to his powerset that he didn't even see anything wrong with it.

Kilgrave can do horrific things up to and including killing people with his voice, then turn around and protest, "I never killed anyone, I never raped anyone, I've been the greatest guy, why won't you acknowledge how cool I am?" He's thoroughly desensitized to what he makes people do. It doesn't even feel like denial; this is just his worldview, and it stems from a complete lack of empathy. Life is so easy for him that he can't even grasp the basic sense of what it's like to be someone else.

He's exactly what the product of living with those powers would naturally be. He's Video Game Cruelty Potential made horribly real. He lives in a world where no other person exists, оnly drones that serve his every word and whim. He's playing reality with Console Commands and it's ruining his immersion. Dehumanization of his peers was the inevitable result.

I feel that this is, without question, the reason for his infatuation with Jessica. Had she never developed a tolerance for his ability, he probably would have been content to spite her and move оn, but he stayed. He could never quite bring himself to walk away. He told himself it was because he loved her, but what he actually loved was her ability to refuse. It made her real. It forced him to compete for the first time in his life.

But it was still a game to him. Still something you win. He couldn't conceive of a scenario where he doesn't get the girl, where he shouldn't get the girl, where the goal he set for himself - to win her love of her own volition - is not now and will never be possible. Every time he hit a hurdle he just changed his approach, constantly searching for the right button to press, the right Conversation Branch, the right gesture to make that would unlock her Girlfriend Mode.

 

It's not an opinion that everyone here who isn't suckered in by Movie Logic are going to disagree with Steve under realities' complexities (because the actual possibility of Nazis secretly taking over the government is the оnly way that way of thinking even works in-universe to make you not come off as a fascistic Nazi asshole yourself), and in all likeliness, no оne here is going to disagree with Tony that superpowered people should not act like private paramilitary assholes who can do whatever they want without public oversight, because if this was real you'd be saying the same thing. This isn't a debate, our actual opinions оn the matter aren't different, that's the reality, because this whole stupid debate оnly works in a stupid movie.

Which is fine, the MCU is a cartoon soap opera that doesn't really need to do anything besides making the audience feel good and try to generically be better people (at least for kids), which it does quite well. Just don't fucking use dead black people as props for a stupid fucking movie where you bring up accountability of оne's actions, and then get two main viewpoints where the morally righteous guy says the public and it's international institutions can go fuck themselves because he knows his agenda is best like some authoritarian shithead, and the other guy is a hypocritical asshole who made a murderbot that blew up a city and blackmailed a kid to be his child soldier after his accountability epiphany. If your going to try address realistic consequences like that, it doesn't matter how much they give you a warm and fuzzy exceptionalist America, Fuck Yeah feeling, I'm going to say both our protagonists can go fuck themselves when you try and fail to bring them up to that degree of realism after a dozen movies where you've said negative consequences can wipe their rock star assholes.

In contrast, Clark (the moral protagonist in BvS) not оnly feels morally conflicted to the point of having nightmares over his limits-induced failures and how he can't stop the bad consequences of his well-meant actions, he's also willing to debate and come to agreement over his actions with the public's demand even though he would never have to with his god-like power. Bruce (the asshole protagonist), оn the other hand, is spiraling down a dark path as judge, jury, and executioner (which is how assholes think). Even his self-accountability to not kill unless forced to will be broken because of his irrational excuse that Superman might become dangerous оne day is means enough to kill him, which was derived from his PTSD-induced anger, which lead him to dehumanize оne of the nicest people оn the planet as an alien other that needs to be killed. And when he has his humanizing epiphany (because the billionaire white man learning it's wrong to dehumanize the illegal alien immigrant refugee to the point of murderous disregard isn't at all relevant), he decides he can't go through with it and even repents by rescuing the mother of his former enemy, because yes, acting as a unilateral moral authority that premeditatively kills people makes you a giant asshole.

Of course, this is still a stupid movie, because Batman should have handed him self over to the justice system if he truly wanted to repent for his horrible actions and intentions, but I'm willing to give the narrative some slack because he's still an anti-hero asshole (because Batman), if оnly to a lesser degree due to Superman. It still handled the issue of accountability to a far better degree than any Marvel movie has ever done and will likely do.

 

The thing about the MCU is that it was too carefully planned; too focused оn the formula. Even elements that should've had lasting consequences - like Wanda being a terrorist or Tony creating Skynet - were swept under the rug so as not to interfere with the pre-designed sequence. Ant-Man threw all subtlety out the window regarding ways of keeping revolutionary tech оnly in the hands of the designated heroes, and just went for sabotaging the competition. After that, the uncivil divorce stacked the deck so as to present the side favoring the status quo with the slightest chance of looking in the right - the opposition was headed by everyone's favorite military strawman, the discussion swerved straight for Steve and Tony's feelz rather than the global aspects of the issue, and the оnly casualty of the final fight was by friendly fire, because any other outcome would've stripped all sympathy from team Steve.

Essentially, the wires started showing. The organic stakes disappeared. What used to feel like a fairly decent season of Star Trek: TNG for its focus оn a consistent main cast and оnly afterthought villains, now went full Voyager with just how blatantly the reset button was setup.

To contrast, the DCEU has yet to pull a punch from its premise, apart from maybe Superman's inevitable resurrection... but with all the Christian imagery, that's about as foreshadowed as possible. And like the X-Men films, its high concept revolves around the existence of metahumans themselves, which is taken as a gray matter, as you never know how the next оne will turn out. There's no defense of superheroics for their own sake - Superman steers clear from vigilantism, while Batman admits he's a criminal himself. This is where the MCU really screwed the pooch - treating superhero registration as if it were superhuman registration, even though the premises are diametrically opposite. Superheroes all but demand special treatment, while mutants and metahumans fight precisely for the right to be treated as everyone else. It's just that, well, the public demands of aspiring vigilantes don't exactly make for a compelling high concept.