Van Irie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yvannairie) wrote2019-04-27 11:25 am
yvannairie) wrote2019-04-27 11:25 am
Entry tags:
I guess we'll agree to never agree
Content warning: Interpersonal abuse
I haven't even seen the movie but I'm already getting the urge to excise myself from the Marvel conversation, and it's for the same reason I eventually grew tired of the neverending Infinity War hot takes.
So, primarily just the fact that the one genuinely insightful and engaging aspect of Thanos as a character has been lost to the fucking avalanche of people wanting to disavow his actions but going about it in the most tiresome, self-involved way possible.
Like, here's the thing, everyone who's said a variation of "abuse isn't love!" w/r/t Thanos getting the Soul Stone -- y'all watched GotG Vol.2, right? Y'all saw the disconnect between Yondu's behaviour and his intent? We all saw Peter call him out on the abusive effects of his actions while accepting that his behaviour did not fully reflect his motivations? Did we all just, like... forget that motivations are value-neutral, suddenly, just because Thanos is unlikeable and wrong?
And by all means, disagree with Thanos' actions. His critical flaw is that he maximalises the consequences of his own actions in his head (fancy that, a genocider with an elevated sense of self-importance) and as such he has to keep doing the worst thing to ensure he's still getting the best result. Hate him, if he reminds you of your own abuser, hate him if you find his writing is hack and only makes him another in a long line of delusional villains who think the ends justify the means.
But this insistence on rejecting and entirely rewriting his motivations, born purely out of an insistence that "true love" can only result in pure, healing, safe action is fucking disingenious and I am disgusted by the amount of times I've seen people insisting that they know "better" what motivates someone just because they're able to see the consequences of their actions, instead of just sticking to calling the behaviour abusive. Because it was.
I'm off to find somewhere to have this conversation that isn't a gaslit room.
I haven't even seen the movie but I'm already getting the urge to excise myself from the Marvel conversation, and it's for the same reason I eventually grew tired of the neverending Infinity War hot takes.
So, primarily just the fact that the one genuinely insightful and engaging aspect of Thanos as a character has been lost to the fucking avalanche of people wanting to disavow his actions but going about it in the most tiresome, self-involved way possible.
Like, here's the thing, everyone who's said a variation of "abuse isn't love!" w/r/t Thanos getting the Soul Stone -- y'all watched GotG Vol.2, right? Y'all saw the disconnect between Yondu's behaviour and his intent? We all saw Peter call him out on the abusive effects of his actions while accepting that his behaviour did not fully reflect his motivations? Did we all just, like... forget that motivations are value-neutral, suddenly, just because Thanos is unlikeable and wrong?
And by all means, disagree with Thanos' actions. His critical flaw is that he maximalises the consequences of his own actions in his head (fancy that, a genocider with an elevated sense of self-importance) and as such he has to keep doing the worst thing to ensure he's still getting the best result. Hate him, if he reminds you of your own abuser, hate him if you find his writing is hack and only makes him another in a long line of delusional villains who think the ends justify the means.
But this insistence on rejecting and entirely rewriting his motivations, born purely out of an insistence that "true love" can only result in pure, healing, safe action is fucking disingenious and I am disgusted by the amount of times I've seen people insisting that they know "better" what motivates someone just because they're able to see the consequences of their actions, instead of just sticking to calling the behaviour abusive. Because it was.
I'm off to find somewhere to have this conversation that isn't a gaslit room.
no subject
And I mean, the movie even makes a point of it not being "easy" on Thanos, it being a decision he experiences as one he made under duress. That, to me, was the part that really solidified that the movie gets the way abusers think, the way everything becomes about the control you exert on yourself, the control you exert on your environment. He did it, but he "had" to do it. "Look at what you/them/the circumstances/society made me do."
I gotta disagree on the side of good treating Thanos' plan like a legitimate but misguided attempt, though? To me, the way his interactions with characters played out were more everyone realising that he's a maniac... and then being thrown by his self-assurance, by his composure. That, also, read very true to life -- a lot of abusive people can on the surface have that charisma that even when you know exactly what they did, you're put on the defensive.