History YMMV / IronFist2017

* MoralEventHorizon:
** Harold definitely crossed the line at some point. Where he crossed it is debatable: when he [[spoiler: brutally kills his assistant Kyle over [[DisproportionateRetribution daring to ask for another ice cream flavor]]? When he kills Lawrence as part of a coup to allow Joy to retake Rand?]] When he [[spoiler: [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness sets up Danny after he defeated Bakuto]] in order to get Rand for himself]]? If ''that'' wasn't enough, then probably the revelation that he was the one who [[spoiler: engineered the death of Danny's parents]] will convince you what an irredeemable scumbag he is.
** [[spoiler: Bakuto]] either crosses it when he [[spoiler: plans on draining Colleen dead after she refuses to help him find Danny]] or when he [[spoiler: shoots Joy]] just to draw Danny out.

* MoralEventHorizon:
** Davos definitely crosses it when he [[spoiler: brutally murders the innocent restaurant owner for not accepting his "protection"]], going into full KnightTemplar territory.
** Speaking of that particular scene, Ryhno and his group of hoodlums were already bad enough for scavenging off of the [[MobWar Triad war]] and preying on the weak, [[FreudianExcuse but that could at least be explained by their poor upbringing.]] However Crank in particular lost any sympathy when he [[spoiler: [[TheStarscream not only killed Rhyno]] [[EvenEvilHasStandards for objecting to the above killing of a restaurant owner]], but also killing [[TokenGoodTeammate the only decent member of their group]] during the attack on Bayard, [[HeelFaceTurn BB.]]]] Even InUniverse, the other kids are treated with way more sympathy and get off way easier than Crank does.

* AuthorsSavingThrow:
** Season One of ''Iron Fist'' was the first MCU-related work to be met with negative reception, with a lot of the blame being focused at showrunner Scott Buck. So naturally, Buck being replaced with Raven Metzner was met with open arms by the fans.
** As part of the show's TroubledProduction due to being cast relatively late, Finn Jones only had two weeks to train before production started. For season 2, he started training four months ahead of production, ensuring he'll have better mastery of martial arts.
** Season two looks to address many of the first season's criticisms, as well as implement elements from the comics that could bring people back on board. These include replacing showrunner Scott Buck, introducing Typhoid Mary as an antagonist & deemphasizing The Hand (after their apparent defeat in ''Defenders''), and borrowing Misty Knight from ''Luke Cage'' to officially introduce the ComicBook/DaughtersOfTheDragon with Colleen. We also actually get to ''see'' K'un-Lun rather than just constantly hear Danny talk about how awesome it is.
** Season 2 has ''drastically'' improved fight scenes from Season 1, featuring increased and more creative use of the Iron Fist power, as well as longer and better-staged takes free from JitterCam or ridiculously heightened editing after the infamous "[[NeverLiveItDown 56/36]]" fight from the first season.
** In a more wide-ranging one, fans had complained for years about the MCU Netflix shows suffering from EndingFatigue as each season was saddled with a thirteen-episode count even as it became more and more clear that hardly any of them (with rare exceptions) actually had enough story to fill that time. With ''Iron Fist'' season 2, there were only ten episodes. At the same time, it's debated whether the shorter episode count has anything to do with story, as it is also possibly a result of them needing more budget for CGI, considering that ''Daredevil'' season 3 filmed concurrently with ''Iron Fist'' season 2 and that had 13 episodes.
** The corporate politics of season 1 were largely seen as boring and without any emotional depth or impact. While season 2 still has a bit of a corporate plot, it's more downplayed and directly connected to the story arc.
** Season 2 addresses the complaints about Danny Rand being a MightyWhitey head-on, revealing that [[spoiler:Danny's becoming the Iron Fist wasn't so much a case of his being a better martial artist than all of K'un-Lun as Davos's father calling the fight where he and Davos battled for the right to face the dragon early, without Davos yielding]]. It ends with [[spoiler:Danny ultimately realizing he did not deserve to be the Iron Fist and deciding to pass on his fist to Colleen Wing, who becomes the new Immortal Iron Fist (like many people clamored in the first season). Though, this created its own set of problems (see above and below).]]
%% Please do not add any Broken Base or Base-Breaking Characters entries until at least six months after the release date. Remember that Broken Base is for prolonged conflicts and that any entries right now are kneejerk reactions.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: After the second season of ''Daredevil'' got heavy criticism for depicting the Hand as a bunch of random stereotypical ninjas, this show features several members with distinct personalities, and a much more diverse Hand cast, with Hispanic, African-American and Caucasian agents on top of the Chinese and Japanese members.

** Danny's attempts at being an honest businessman can come off as more arrogant and childish than noble, despite the praise he gets. He demands a new drug be sold at cost, despite [[JerkassHasAPoint Ward having a very valid point]] that the profits would fund further drug research and that the World Health Organization would subsidize the cost of the medication for third world countries. Danny repeats this later in the series by apologizing for (and effectively accepting responsibility for) incidents of cancer that were blamed, without any proof, on a Rand chemical plant. This leads to the company being effectively blackmailed and rather than admitting fault, Danny doubles down, and shuts the plant down against the board's recommendations. It's hard to tell if we're ''supposed'' to root for the ascetic monk in this case, or recognize how out of his depth he is. [[AuthorsSavingThrow At least by the end of the series]], Danny admits he is not a good businessman and no one tries to refute it. By season 2, he's running his own moving company in Chinatown and has left Ward to run Rand Enterprises.

** Some fans take the much-maligned scene mentioned below in UnfortunateImplications as actually being a good-natured debate between Danny's Chinese martial arts knowledge and Colleen's Japanese, similar to fans of different sports teams griefing each other.

* UnfortunateImplications:
** Among all the stuff mentioned in BrokenBase, [[http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/8/14848336/iron-fist-review-netflix-show-marvel particular ire]] has fallen on the MightyWhitey overtones of a scene where Danny lectures Colleen about East Asian philosophy and the true nature of martial arts ''in her own dojo''. Bad enough in-universe, and worse when you consider that everything he's saying is based on a fictional martial art made up in the '70s.[[note]]Though she does get her own back a couple episodes later when she calls out Danny's sword work (using a traditional Japanese Katana like a chinese sword) and shows him how it's supposed to be done, to which he calls her amazing.[[/note]]
** As ''The AV Club'' [[http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/iron-fist-starts-finds-its-feet-danny-gains-new-al-252327 put it]], "It blows my mind that despite the sheer number of people who worked on this episode no one flagged that it would be a bad idea to have Danny chastise a room full of black and brown students by calling them 'chattering monkeys.' It's stuff like that that makes me hesitant to give the show the benefit of the doubt when it comes to issues of representation. If the creators aren't even aware of basic racially charged language, how am I supposed to trust that they've thought out the racial politics of their show?"

** As noted under BrokenBase, Finn Jones's casting as Danny Rand. Race issues aside, he's a non-American actor who has zero martial arts background. Then again, Charlie Cox, a British actor, plays Daredevil, and most of his action scenes are performed by stuntman Chris Brewster.

*** the casting of Henry Golding as SnakeEyes in the G.I.Joe film also brings up similar discussions.

* OlderThanTheyThink: The discussion of whether Danny Rand should have been Caucasian or Asian American has been around since he debuted back in the '70s. While a lot of the blame is shoved onto ''people who don't even read the comics'', there was a lot of people calling for an Asian Danny who were big fans of Iron Fist and many spoke quite warmly of the character, in-spite of the racial issues (Creator/GailSimone, for instance, identified Iron Fist as her favourite Marvel character, while being a big proponent for casting an Asian actor).

** The first season of ''Daredevil'' treated its central plot as a slow burn, with the story gradually unfolding across 13 episodes. While the writing was engaging enough to keep people's attention, the attempts from ''Iron Fist'' to mimic this pacing came across as boring to much of the audience, with many accusing the show of merely {{Padding}} for time. To a lesser extent, the criticisms about the story being unnecessarily stretched out to fit the 13 episode order were also directed at fellow Marvel Netflix shows ''Series/Jessica Jones2015'' and ''Series/Luke Cage2016'' before it, and ''Series/The Punisher2017'' after it.

** Season 2 addresses the complaints about Danny Rand being a MightyWhitey head-on, revealing that [[spoiler:Danny's becoming the Iron Fist wasn't so much a case of his being a better martial artist than all of K'un-Lun as Davos's father calling the fight where he and Davos battled for the right to face the dragon early, without Davos yielding]]. It ends with [[spoiler:Danny ultimately realizing he did not deserve to be the Iron Fist and deciding to pass on his fist to Colleen Wing, who becomes the new Immortal Iron Fist (like many people clamored in the first season).]]

** Speaking of that particular scene, Ryhno and his group of hoodlums were already bad enough for scavenging off of the [[MobWar Triad war]] and preying on the weak, [[FreudianExcuse but that could at least be explained by their poor upbringing.]] However [[KnifeNut Crank]] in particular lost any sympathy when he [[spoiler: [[TheStarscream not only killed Rhyno]] [[EvenEvilHasStandards for objecting to the above killing of a restaurant owner]], but also killing [[TokenGoodTeammate the only decent member of their group]] during the attack on Bayard, [[HeelFaceTurn BB.]]]] Even InUniverse, the other kids are treated with way more sympathy and get off way easier than Crank does.

* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap:
** An odd case across two shows. Jessica Henwick was best known as Nymeria in the much-ridiculed Sand Snake storyline in ''Game of Thrones'', especially infamous for its FightSceneFailure, which led some fans to dread the news of Henwick being cast as Colleen. Here she shows that she actually can believably fight (the earlier scene was a victim of a TroubledProduction where none of the actors had any time to practice with each other) and even the many negative reviews single her out as the best part of the show.
** In a more straightforward example, the Meachum siblings, especially Ward. During the more universally-panned early episodes, they're often called a generic CorruptCorporateExecutive duo overloaded on ArbitrarySkepticism, with Ward in particular getting flack as a BigBrotherBully. Meanwhile, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who ''didn't'' adore Ward and either love or LoveToHate Joy by the season's end. Ward's popularity had a big turnaround starting with flipping the bird at his father's security camera, followed by him [[TheDogBitesBack stabbing his father to death]]. His popularity steadily grew as he became more sympathetic after his HeelFaceTurn and he decides to side with Danny. [[spoiler:Their father, Harold, escapes a lot of this by being generally liked as a villain the entire time.]]

** In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnGtPCAHsak this video]] by [[Blog/TextsFromSuperheroes Sketches From Superheroes]], Luke Cage says that Iron Fist's origin story, which involves dragons, is very ''Series/GameOfThrones.'' Finn Jones (Danny) and Jessica Henwick (Colleen) are from ''Game of Thrones''.
** RZA directs episode 6 of the show, which is a mystical Kung Fu series. What was his directional debut? A mystical Kung Fu film called ''Film/{{The Man with the|IronFists}}'' '''''[[Film/TheManWithTheIronFists Iron Fists]]'''''.
** When early reviews of the first six episodes started coming in, Finn Jones notoriously started a Twitter controversy by claiming it was "for the fans" and criticizing the critics in turn for making their minds up without watching the whole season. It was promptly written off as an actor trying to salvage a trainwreck of a show. Then the show actually premiered and its audience reviews (on Rotten Tomatoes, at least) are on the low end (only ''{{Series/Inhumans}}'' is lower) but otherwise [[CriticalDissonance on par with most other Marvel series]].
** Given the negative critical reception, some who were originally in favor of an Asian lead are actually relieved, since the negative publicity of the show could have actually been harmful for Asian American representation.
** Say, wasn't there a Davos in ''Series/GameOfThrones'' as well? Sacha Dhawan himself actually voiced a character in VideoGame/TelltalesGameOfThrones.
** Speaking about Sacha Dhawan, he later plays [[spoiler: [[Series/DoctorWho the Master]], the Doctor's ArchEnemy. And the Doctor's other Arch-Enemy's name is Davros.]]
** On the subject of medieval tales, it's very darkly humorous that '''[[Film/TheLordOfTheRings Faramir]]''' is guilty of ParentalFavouritism now.

** Despite Claire saying that Danny shouldn't face the Hand alone, [[SupermanStaysOutOfGotham she doesn't contact]] [[Series/Daredevil2015 Matt]], great martial artist with a grudge and impressive fight record against the organization. ''Series/JessicaJones2015'' already had two of ''Series/TheDefenders2017'' teaming up, so there was already precedent. It turns into WhatAnIdiot when she insists on going to fight them ''herself''. The closest explanation to why Claire doesn't seek out Matt is that, as seen in ''The Defenders'', Matt has been busy grieving Elektra's death and likely has cut back on his Daredevil activities. On the other hand, Madame Gao’s plan to flood New York with drugs of new caliber could be a reason good enough to bring Matt back into action anyway.

* WhatAnIdiot:
** Danny’s ''first'' action in the series is showing up at the corporate building dressed as a hobo proceeding to ask a receptionist if she can arrange a meeting with the CEO for him, an attempt which goes as well as you could expect. Despite this, he may not really qualify for this trope because this behavior is not an isolated case but rather one of the many times when he acted without even attempting to [[WhatWereYouThinking think things through.]] Danny’s propensity to act on [[ATragedyofImpulsiveness impulse]] is repeatedly [[LampshadeHanging acknowledged]] by his allies and [[FlawExploitation exploited]] by his enemies.
** Ward, when you are unarmed, alone and completely at the mercy of a seemingly insane man whose clearly an expert fighter, it would be wise not to insult and taunt him. Good thing for Ward that Danny was a good guy, or he could have injured, mutilated or killed Ward right there. After nearly getting killed, he threatens Danny again. One of the best examples in MCU where arrogance completely supersedes common sense.

* MagnificentBitch: [[YMMV/TheDefenders2017 Madame Gao]]. See that page for details.

** Many reviews complain that Finn Jones is stiff and entirely unconvincing as a martial arts expert, made worse by his not wearing the costume so it's harder to put in a fight double like in ''Daredevil''. Due to their tight schedule, Jones did not start practicing the fight scene choreography until [[http://www.criticalhit.net/entertainment/iron-fists-finn-jones-learned-shows-fight-choreography-just-15-minutes-scene/ fifteen minutes before shooting]].

** Some reviews have also been critical of Colleen Wing's cage match scene, similar to her actress' Fight Scene Failure example in her appearance in ''Series/GameOfThrones''.

* {{Adorkable}}: Danny has his moments, largely due to his naiviety an fish-out-of-water nature. A good example is him gushing over discovering the Franchise/{{Pokemon}} stickers under his dad's desk.

** Season two looks to address many of the first season's criticisms, as well as implement elements from the comics that could bring people back on board. These include replacing showrunner Scott Buck, introducing Typhoid Mary as an antagonist & deemphasizing The Hand (after their apparent defeat in ''Defenders''), and borrowing ComicBook/MistyKnight from ''Luke Cage'' to officially introduce the ComicBook/DaughtersOfTheDragon with Colleen. We also actually get to ''see'' K'un-Lun rather than just constantly hear Danny talk about how awesome it is.

** Scythe is also very memorable due to his introductory scene being [[CrazyAwesome strangling a man with a microphone while singing karaoke]] (of "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914 Take on Me]]" [[SoundtrackDissonance no less]]) as well as being a badass Hand warrior with a snide sense of humor who nearly matches Danny in combat.

** Speaking of Bakuto. Most will agree he didn't really work as the BigBad given his abrupt introduction with little foreshadowing, but there's also a group who didn't dislike him as a character. Looking at his more nobler qualities as a BenevolentBoss who wants to do good for the world in his own way, he could end up passing off as a DesignatedVillain.

** With fellow [[Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse MCU]] property ''Film/Shang-ChiandtheLegendoftheTenRings'', due to the show's MightyWhitey casting controversy and FightSceneFailure. Fans of ''Shang-Chi'' gloated that the film's two minute teaser, which featured an Asian lead and largely Asian supporting cast and was lauded for its beautiful fight choreography, outsold both seasons of ''Iron Fist''.

* BrokenAesop: One of the key underlying aspects of Iron Fist as a character is that he's one of the few superheroes who earned his power. Others are born with them, buy them by using their great wealth to develop super-powered gadgets, are chosen, or get them through accident or chance. Danny Rand, far removed from the privileged lifestyle of a billionaire, had to endure hardships the like of which are unknown to most people in the modern world. He had to fight every other contender in K'un-Lun, endure daily beatings, and train every day, all to win the right to face Shou Lao the Dragon, including beating a dragon with his bare hands. This rings a little hollow in, Season 2, however, when Colleen gets the title without working for it because one of her ancestors also held the title.

** Characters spend several episodes acting skeptical that Danny is who he says he is, to the point where some critics got the impression that the show was actually trying to make the audience question it, despite this making about as much sense as a movie about Batman trying to convince everyone that he's Bruce Wayne!

** Then there's the [[spoiler:DrunkenMaster]] Zhou Cheng who Danny fights, distinguished not only by his amusing personality but by being one of the few Hand members to not only nearly win against Danny, but show a degree of honor while doing it, something his [[KnifeNut compatriots]] were [[PoisonedWeapons clearly]] [[KickThemWhileTheyAreDown lacking.]]
** Scythe is also very memorable due his introductory scene being [[CrazyAwesome strangling a man with a microphone while singing karaoke]] (of "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914 Take on Me]]" [[SoundtrackDissonance no less]]) as well as being a badass Hand warrior with a snide sense of humor who nearly matches Danny in combat.

* HoYay: All of Danny's good stories of K'un L'un start with "Me and Davos." Davos also acts personally hurt that Danny would have left K'un L'un and really really doesn't like Colleen.

* ItsNotSupposedToWinOscars: Finn Jones addressed the scathing pre-release reviews by explaining that Marvel made the show for fans of the comic books, not for critics. Apparently Mr. Jones hasn't read the comics.

** A lot of fans of the character actually agree with the negative reception of the show, since while it kept the character's ethnicity very little ''else'' was kept; besides the costume, Danny also loses a [[AdaptationalWimp great deal of his skill and power]], was [[AdaptationalPersonalityChange significantly more angsty and toxic]], and the more interesting aspects of the show were demoted in importance and put OutOfFocus seemingly for the sake of being cheaper. The commonly-cited defense that it was made 'for the fans' feels disingenuous when the show is clearly made without ''any'' actual interest in the original source.

* AssPull: Colleen happening to be the great-great x20 grand daughter of some previous Iron Fist and this somehow meaning that she's not only entitled to the Iron Fist but that Danny's entire role in life and the purpose of his years of training, hard work and enduring physical abuse were only so he could give the Iron Fist to Colleen who didn't have to do any of that. Ass Pull in that, needless to say, none of this has any basis in any version of anything even resembling the source material.
** Related to, but parallel to the previous point, is the reason the plot gives for the forced switching of protagonist status from Danny to Colleen. Colleen and the plot really strain themselves telling the audience (and Danny) that Danny could not ever hope to face Davos himself because he's too emotionally invested since Davos is like a brother to him. Being emotionally invested has never stopped Batman from facing Joker, Spider-man from facing Green Goblin, Cloud from facing Sephiroth, etc. This excuse becomes an AssPull when you realize virtually every Hero-Villain dynamic is like that.

*** One would have to wonder how training, fighting and suffering daily abuse and hardship, winning all his fights and finally winning a fight against a literal dragon is "not deserving" of being an Iron Fist, but Colleen simply being born into the right family does entitle her to be the Iron Fist.

* PanderingToTheBase: It is very transparent that the decision to suddenly make Colleen an Iron Fist was something the writers lifted directly from some comment section or another after several people half-jokingly suggested that Colleen should be the Iron Fist since they liked her better than Danny, following the reception the first season got.

** As noted under BrokenBase, Finn Jones's casting as Danny Rand. Race issues aside, he's a non-American actor who has zero martial arts background. Then again, Charlie Cox, a British actor, plays Daredevil, and most of his actions scenes are performed by stuntman Chris Brewster.

** In a more wide-ranging one, fans had complained for years about the MCU Netflix shows suffering from EndingFatigue as each season was saddled with a thirteen episode count even as it became more and more clear that hardly any of them (with rare exceptions) actually had enough story to fill that time. With ''Iron Fist'' season 2, there were only ten episodes. At the same time, it's debated whether the shorter episode count has anything to do with story, as it is also possibly a result of them needing more budget for CGI, considering that ''Daredevil'' season 3 filmed concurrently with ''Iron Fist'' season 2 and that had 13 episodes.

* BrokenAesop: One of the key underlying aspects of Iron Fist as a character is that he's one of the few superheroes who EARNED his power. Others are born with them, buy them by using their great wealth to develop super powered gadgets, are chosen, or get them through accident or chance. If winning the Iron Fist was a matter of being born with the right blood, then there would never have been a need for choosing an Iron Fist, the Iron Fist would simply go to the descendants of a single Iron Fist bloodline; but this is not the case, as anyone could be the Iron Fist, if they worked hard enough for it. Danny Rand, far removed from the privileged lifestyle of a billionaire, had to endure hardships the like of which are unknown to most people in the modern world. He had to fight every other contender in K'un-Lun, endure daily beatings and trained every day, all of which was just so he could win the right to face Shou Lao the Dragon. He had to beat a literal dragon with his bare hands to become the Iron Fist. But come Season 2 and we are told that Colleen is now suddenly entitled to being the Iron Fist just because a very distant ancestor happened to be the Iron Fist. What is the lesson then? "Be sure to be born in the right family"?

* EndingFatigue: The last episode resolves the plot about 20 minutes in, and spends the remaining half hour setting up sequel hooks for later seasons.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: The story just entitling Colleen to the Iron Fist by virtue of existing when literally every single Iron Fist before her had to train for years, defeat dozens of other candidates and beat a literal Dragon with their bare hands, has the unexpected consequence of her appearing a tad bit unsympathetic by the end of it, an opinion held by several of the show's followers. The fact that she immediately and unceremoniously dumps Danny after taking his hard-earned powers doesn't help matters in the slightest. One has to wonder how would modern society look on this same development if only the sexes were reversed, and a female hero had her hard-earned powers taken away by a male side character just because he happens to have the right bloodline.