scrubjayspeaks (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
scrubjayspeaks) wrote2019-05-20 05:42 pm
scrubjayspeaks) wrote2019-05-20 05:42 pm
Entry tags:
Good, Evil, and Cosmic Loopholes: How Vormir Could Have Gone
So here's one of the things that bothers me about Natasha's death. It's not entirely about her specifically, though, so apologies for that in advance. My issue is that the quest for the Soul Stone could have been a great moment for The Creativity of Goodness*.
Look, Thanos's plan is just bad. First, all suffering is caused by conflict over limited resources. Okay, sure, I guess. Never mind that a much hotter take would be to address the fact that there is plenty to go around, but a small number of people hoard as many resources as they can, thereby depriving others. But cool, fine, we'll roll with it. Thanos snaps half of everybody.
(Also, how are we defining everybody? Sentient beings? Are animals included? Only some of them? Plants? Where does Groot fall on this spectrum? I'm unclear on any of this. Did he snap half of all dolphins, finally catching those sly bastards when the Vogons couldn't? ...I digress.)
At this point, my question is: so fucking what? Fine, cool, the people left have theoretically greater access to resources. Does Thanos think all species are going to...stop reproducing? Does he think no societies will once again face overpopulation**? The snap is a one-time thing--Thanos never intends to repeat the process. Is this why he's mad about the resistance? His plan will only work if everyone goes, oh, cool, cool, we get it, we'll carefully manage our population growth from here on out. Fuck, dude, tell me you weren't that naive.
Goddamn it, I got distracted. Point is, Thanos--not a role model for creative thinking.
So to get the soul stone, you have to sacrifice what you love.
Red Skull: Soul holds a special place among the Infinity Stones. You might say, it is a certain wisdom.
Thanos: Tell me what it needs.
Red Skull: To ensure that whoever possesses it understands its power, the stone demands a sacrifice. [...] In order to take the stone, you must lose that which you love. A soul for a soul.
So Thanos sacrifices Gamora: pretty dead lady laid out all bloody at the bottom of the cliff***.
Now, here's the thing. Anything with that kind of rule--to get X, you must Y--is a great opportunity to play with cosmic legal loopholes. Anything centered on emotion is even more ripe for subversion in this way. It's not just a rule; it's a riddle.
I saw a suggestion that Steve could have sacrificed the serum, and all it meant to his identity, and have that count. I'm not saying I agree with that particular idea--they would probably have needed to nix the specific use of "soul for a soul" back in Infinity War to make it work, for one--but that's the sort of thinking I'm after. Twist the rules, find the loophole, get creative.
Don't tell me the only way to overcome this obstacle is to do exactly the same thing the villain did.
Which brings me to my actual point at last. Because Evil is, at its heart, unimaginative. Uncreative. Stupid. And the forces of Good should be able to do a sight better than that, for god's sake.
I'm not saying all villains, fictional or real, are incapable of some creativity. Don't tell me about whatever serial killer found such elegantly weird ways of torturing people, or what petty monster used the system to his own advantage. That's, ugh, a certain sort of cleverness, but it's the most base kind possible. It's tedious even when it shocks. It's the kind of imagination that says shredding a canvas into a trashcan is just as creative as actually painting something on it****.
But I have a reason for saying this, beyond just instinctive snarling. Good obeys rules--even just self-imposed ones--all the time. Good says, this is right and this is wrong, and my behavior will be shaped according to those principles. The hero takes a stand--about what they will protect, how they will do it, what lines they will not cross no matter what is at stake--and figures out how to win without coloring outside those lines. Good knows how to work with rules and boundaries and restrictions, because it does it all the time.
Evil--not antagonists, not opponents, not people you dislike--real, proper Evil can't be bothered with such restrictions. It has never built up the discipline of the soul required to operate within boundaries, and it has never had to solve problems within such strictures. It's lazy, and it's careless.
The sort of Evil that would wipe out half of everyone at random, because it couldn't figure out how else to make sure everyone got enough bread to eat, looks at a problem like the Soul Stone requirements and thinks, sure, okay, guess I better do what it says.
I wanted to see the Avengers look at that same problem and think, hm, just how far can I stretch the edges of this rule and still qualify? I'm not saying no sacrifice would be needed. I'm not saying it wouldn't come with any pain. But there has to be a better answer, a more clever and creative answer.
Oh, oh, now I remember what this reminds me of: Kobayashi Maru. "I don't believe in no-win scenarios." That's exactly what I'm talking about. I wanted to see THAT on the cliff at Vormir. (Please don't @ me about Star Trek, it's not my fandom, forgive me for invoking it, etc, etc, whatever.)
And here's the thing: Natasha would have been goddamn perfection for that. The rogue-gone-good, the spy, the shapeshifter, the patron saint of those seeking redemption--who BETTER to outwit a rule like that?
I'm not saying they could have done it with the way the rules were established for Endgame.
But they wrote it that way, and they could have written it differently.
Fine, let Gamora die for Thanos's dumbass plan. (Or, I mean, don't, 'cause I don't want Gamora dead either.) Present him with the rules of the stone, and let him go along with them just the same. But they could have tweaked those rules just slightly, when they first laid them out. Change them such that Natasha, with Clint as her partner, would look at that kind of constraint and go:
I can get out of this. I can sacrifice something without losing everything, because I have lost everything before, I have sacrificed everything before, and I have rebuilt myself from ashes and broken bones, and I'm claiming my consolation prize retroactively.
It would be like a heist of the soul and of the Soul Stone.
Tell me that wouldn't have been better than what they gave us. Tell me that wouldn't have let her have a Big Damn Hero moment and live to brag about it to Steve. Tell me that wouldn't have spat in the eye of Thanos and his tiny, naive, short-sighted, tedious Evil. Tell me that, and I'll call you a dirty liar.
* This is my more diplomatic name for what I mean. I was going to just call it The Fundamental Stupidity of Evil, but I thought that might be excessively grouchy of me.
**It's a myth, on this planet at least, but whatever, go off, Purple Dude.
***Which is another ax I have to grind about Natasha's death. I think laying her out just like Gamora, a person with more than a few character beats in common with Natasha, in the same place, under the same circumstances, is not so much ~~~echoing~~~ or otherwise calling back Gamora's death. It's just...an exact copy of a scene that only happened one movie/five years ago.
(Compare that to the pairing of Bucky falling from the train and Steve falling from the helicarrier, which I think does a hell of a lot more because it's not just a carbon copy.)
Doing it exactly the same doesn't add any new meaning to the moment. Another pretty dead lady laid out all bloody at the bottom of the cliff. You haven't said anything DEEP here. It's cheap storytelling and dull cinematography, and y'all can fight me.
****No, nope, this is Not That Post. I do NOT invite you to fight me on this one. Just leave me to my grumblings.
Look, Thanos's plan is just bad. First, all suffering is caused by conflict over limited resources. Okay, sure, I guess. Never mind that a much hotter take would be to address the fact that there is plenty to go around, but a small number of people hoard as many resources as they can, thereby depriving others. But cool, fine, we'll roll with it. Thanos snaps half of everybody.
(Also, how are we defining everybody? Sentient beings? Are animals included? Only some of them? Plants? Where does Groot fall on this spectrum? I'm unclear on any of this. Did he snap half of all dolphins, finally catching those sly bastards when the Vogons couldn't? ...I digress.)
At this point, my question is: so fucking what? Fine, cool, the people left have theoretically greater access to resources. Does Thanos think all species are going to...stop reproducing? Does he think no societies will once again face overpopulation**? The snap is a one-time thing--Thanos never intends to repeat the process. Is this why he's mad about the resistance? His plan will only work if everyone goes, oh, cool, cool, we get it, we'll carefully manage our population growth from here on out. Fuck, dude, tell me you weren't that naive.
Goddamn it, I got distracted. Point is, Thanos--not a role model for creative thinking.
So to get the soul stone, you have to sacrifice what you love.
Red Skull: Soul holds a special place among the Infinity Stones. You might say, it is a certain wisdom.
Thanos: Tell me what it needs.
Red Skull: To ensure that whoever possesses it understands its power, the stone demands a sacrifice. [...] In order to take the stone, you must lose that which you love. A soul for a soul.
So Thanos sacrifices Gamora: pretty dead lady laid out all bloody at the bottom of the cliff***.
Now, here's the thing. Anything with that kind of rule--to get X, you must Y--is a great opportunity to play with cosmic legal loopholes. Anything centered on emotion is even more ripe for subversion in this way. It's not just a rule; it's a riddle.
I saw a suggestion that Steve could have sacrificed the serum, and all it meant to his identity, and have that count. I'm not saying I agree with that particular idea--they would probably have needed to nix the specific use of "soul for a soul" back in Infinity War to make it work, for one--but that's the sort of thinking I'm after. Twist the rules, find the loophole, get creative.
Don't tell me the only way to overcome this obstacle is to do exactly the same thing the villain did.
Which brings me to my actual point at last. Because Evil is, at its heart, unimaginative. Uncreative. Stupid. And the forces of Good should be able to do a sight better than that, for god's sake.
I'm not saying all villains, fictional or real, are incapable of some creativity. Don't tell me about whatever serial killer found such elegantly weird ways of torturing people, or what petty monster used the system to his own advantage. That's, ugh, a certain sort of cleverness, but it's the most base kind possible. It's tedious even when it shocks. It's the kind of imagination that says shredding a canvas into a trashcan is just as creative as actually painting something on it****.
But I have a reason for saying this, beyond just instinctive snarling. Good obeys rules--even just self-imposed ones--all the time. Good says, this is right and this is wrong, and my behavior will be shaped according to those principles. The hero takes a stand--about what they will protect, how they will do it, what lines they will not cross no matter what is at stake--and figures out how to win without coloring outside those lines. Good knows how to work with rules and boundaries and restrictions, because it does it all the time.
Evil--not antagonists, not opponents, not people you dislike--real, proper Evil can't be bothered with such restrictions. It has never built up the discipline of the soul required to operate within boundaries, and it has never had to solve problems within such strictures. It's lazy, and it's careless.
The sort of Evil that would wipe out half of everyone at random, because it couldn't figure out how else to make sure everyone got enough bread to eat, looks at a problem like the Soul Stone requirements and thinks, sure, okay, guess I better do what it says.
I wanted to see the Avengers look at that same problem and think, hm, just how far can I stretch the edges of this rule and still qualify? I'm not saying no sacrifice would be needed. I'm not saying it wouldn't come with any pain. But there has to be a better answer, a more clever and creative answer.
Oh, oh, now I remember what this reminds me of: Kobayashi Maru. "I don't believe in no-win scenarios." That's exactly what I'm talking about. I wanted to see THAT on the cliff at Vormir. (Please don't @ me about Star Trek, it's not my fandom, forgive me for invoking it, etc, etc, whatever.)
And here's the thing: Natasha would have been goddamn perfection for that. The rogue-gone-good, the spy, the shapeshifter, the patron saint of those seeking redemption--who BETTER to outwit a rule like that?
I'm not saying they could have done it with the way the rules were established for Endgame.
But they wrote it that way, and they could have written it differently.
Fine, let Gamora die for Thanos's dumbass plan. (Or, I mean, don't, 'cause I don't want Gamora dead either.) Present him with the rules of the stone, and let him go along with them just the same. But they could have tweaked those rules just slightly, when they first laid them out. Change them such that Natasha, with Clint as her partner, would look at that kind of constraint and go:
I can get out of this. I can sacrifice something without losing everything, because I have lost everything before, I have sacrificed everything before, and I have rebuilt myself from ashes and broken bones, and I'm claiming my consolation prize retroactively.
It would be like a heist of the soul and of the Soul Stone.
Tell me that wouldn't have been better than what they gave us. Tell me that wouldn't have let her have a Big Damn Hero moment and live to brag about it to Steve. Tell me that wouldn't have spat in the eye of Thanos and his tiny, naive, short-sighted, tedious Evil. Tell me that, and I'll call you a dirty liar.
* This is my more diplomatic name for what I mean. I was going to just call it The Fundamental Stupidity of Evil, but I thought that might be excessively grouchy of me.
**It's a myth, on this planet at least, but whatever, go off, Purple Dude.
***Which is another ax I have to grind about Natasha's death. I think laying her out just like Gamora, a person with more than a few character beats in common with Natasha, in the same place, under the same circumstances, is not so much ~~~echoing~~~ or otherwise calling back Gamora's death. It's just...an exact copy of a scene that only happened one movie/five years ago.
(Compare that to the pairing of Bucky falling from the train and Steve falling from the helicarrier, which I think does a hell of a lot more because it's not just a carbon copy.)
Doing it exactly the same doesn't add any new meaning to the moment. Another pretty dead lady laid out all bloody at the bottom of the cliff. You haven't said anything DEEP here. It's cheap storytelling and dull cinematography, and y'all can fight me.
****No, nope, this is Not That Post. I do NOT invite you to fight me on this one. Just leave me to my grumblings.
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no subject
Thank you kindly! Glad it resonated with you.
>>access the soul realm (which was certainly hinted at in IW with baby Gamora — and therefore, clearly, the continued existence of her soul)<<
So, I pulled up the scene of Gamora's death, partly to confirm the exact wording that Red Skull gives and partly to make sure I really was correct in thinking Natasha's death mirrored her pose exactly. Aaaand that was absolutely all I could be bothered to rewatch of IW. I didn't even remember about baby Gamora and further implications about the soul realm. I might have to rewatch that at some point as well, but damn it, life is too short for all that sad.
>>And there's really nothing else to be said about the Good vs. Evil of it all, you just laid it all out.<<
I will admit that I am unfashionably straightforward about these things. I have a very low tolerance for shades of grey thinking. I wasn't sure how that aspect of this piece would go over.