Discussion YMMV / SpiderManHomecoming

I invited the troper who removed my changes to participate in this discussion via a direct PM.

Usually I'd wait 2-3 days for a response (or lack thereof) before proceeding. However, in reviewing their "recent edit" history, it's very sporadic and limited suggesting they are more of a Drive-By Updater.

In the absence of any other feedback, I'm reinstating the changes that were removed.

Hello,

My problem with Spiderman is that he was clearly humiliating Bucky and Falcon.

That he is not able to beat Vulture and Shocker separately makes him look much weaker.

I admit I'm not quite seeing what you feel is Spider-Man "clearly humiliating" Bucky/Falcon.

I rewatched the Spidey/Bucky/Falcon fight scene prior to this reply and I saw the points I had raised.

a) Spidey initially has the advantage due to his superior strength/agility.

b) Bucky/Falcon are primarily focusing on trying to escape and want to get away from Spidey as quickly as possible.

c) As the fight continues, Falcon/Bucky as more experience fighters, start adapting to Spidey's abilities.

d) A new observation I had is that Falcon is hindered by having to fly within an enclosed terminal that's not very high or wide, thus his flying ability is at a disadvantage. This gives Spidey a big advantage over Falcon that he did not have when dealing with the Vulture.

Their fight shows a give and take in the melee. Spidey starts with an advantage, then Bucky/Falcon double-team him, then Spidey gets a good web shot into Falcon's thrusters causing a crash. Spidey gets in a good web-swing that knocks Bucky/Falcon down to the next level and are then partially webbed up. However, Falcon has adapted to Spidey's attack and summons Redwing to entangle his arm and drag him out of the terminal before Spidey can fully web them up.

I agree that there is a bit of Badass Decay between Civil War (which is Spidey's introduction to the MCU and they were wanting to show him off a bit) and Homecoming (which had a more John Hughes high school film vibe).

However, I don't feel it's drastic enough to be considered a ret-con and as I pointed out earlier, the portrayal of Spidey's competency (due to his inexperience) is actually pretty consistent between these two films. I outlined my objective reasoning in the first part of this discussion.

Thus I felt the trope is properly qualified as a Downplayed Example of Badass Decay and altered the example to justify that.

Badass Decay (and honestly the Adaptational Wimp on the main page) both really seem to be splitting hairs, especially since Spidey's power level in the comics is pretty damn all over the place.

I agree with you. I personally feel that this page and the main page trope list should try and focus on the version of Spider-Man that the MCU is trying to portray. Namely a 15 year boy, new to his powers, still trying to figure out how they work, no fighting experience, little life experience and with the typical confusions and poor choices associated with being a teenager in high-school.

When you try to compare this version of Spider-Man against the huge amount of baggage associated with all of his different portrayals in comics, tv, and movies you end up with a rambling mess full of splitting-hairs.

I think it would help reduce page bloat if the tropes examples limit themselves to how well (or poorly) Spider-Man is adapted from how Marvel portrayed Spider-Man when he first started in the comics and taking in exceptions (ie future story line references) on a case by case basis.

E.g. to call Flash Thompson in the movie a "wasted character" because his portrayal in the movie makes it harder to adapt the "Agent Venom" storyline is technically true but, in my opinion, missing the point of the trope which is about a character who's wasted in the context/medium of the story in which they're portrayed, not because because their portrayal makes it difficult to adapt a future story line that may never be part of the MCU.

Sadly, I've noted that the YMMV area here tends to be quite vehement in sticking with personal interpretations and life's too short to get into heated, non-civil, debates.

Hi rva98014, you invited me to the discussion.

Seeing as how the YMMV is opinion-based, and not everyone will share the same views, I was of the personal opinion that Peter could have handled the situation a bit better. After all, he knew about Toomes but up to that point, Toomes knew nothing about him and didn't make the threat until the very end of the drive, in which case Peter went after him anyways. In that light, things could have gone down very differently if he had kept his cool and not given Vulture any reason to read him like an open book, even if Peter wasn't the greatest strategist at that point.

And as I said before, I understand that the whole point of Homecoming was to portray Peter as a less mature teenager who's still learning the ropes but that doesn't make some of his screwups any less cringe-worthy. After all, in real life, a high school student who gets drunk and crashes his dad's car into a tree has the perfectly legitimate excuse that he's young and immature but his actions would still be considered idiotic. In that sense, I feel that Peter's reaction to finding out Toomes was Liz's dad and blowing his cover was fully understandable, given his age and inexperience, but still quite stupid.

The YMMV pages are more subjective than the other pages and invite opinions on the interpretation and applicability of a trope to a work. However, examples are still governed by the trope definition.

What An Idiot is when the audience has such a visceral reaction to a character grabbing the Idiot Ball that they can't help but Face Palm and yell "what an idiot". An aspect of carrying the Idiot Ball is that the character behaves "willfully stupid or obtuse far beyond what has been established as 'natural' for them". They are essentially having a significant and noticeable out of character reaction, usually just for the sake of the plot.

Regarding how Peter reacts to his discovery that Adrian is the Vulture, I agree that he behaved stupidly and could have handled it better. The question is whether his response is inconsistent with the way Peter has been presented in the story such that you can say beyond a doubt that he was grabbing the Idiot Ball for that scene.

I don't believe that to be the case. I found his reaction consistent with what we had been shown of him being a young, fledgling superhero who is suddenly put in a tense, emotional situation he was not expecting or had ever dealt with before. We are shown he is overwhelmed at first but, in time, is able to calm himself enough to come up with the cell-phone strategy.

Your reply acknowledges that you found Peter's reaction to be fully understandable but quite stupid. As I pointed out earlier, a character making a stupid or poor decision because they are panicked, or inexperienced or dealing with a totally unforeseen situation, does not automatically qualify for Idiot Ball / What An Idiot and I don't feel this situation is a strong example of this trope.

If Peter had been Spider-Man for several years and reacted this way I could see it as an Idiot Ball, but him being inexperienced and dealing poorly with what is essentially his first super-villain doesn't seem justified.

His personal culpability is not speculative at best. The film clearly states that it was a joint venture. Under the legal definition and guidelines of such a partnership, Stark does bear responsibility for the agency's actions, even if he did not personally execute them and even if the agency was created under an Executive Order.

This is a YMMV page, so this isn't supposed to be consensual in any case. i.e. if someone has a feeling positive/negative to a character as long as what they state is not inaccurate to the text (i.e. film/book/comic/game etcetera) then it stays.

Tony Stark does have some responsibility about Damage Control but his responsibility about Toomes is more negligence/indifference than malice.

Nobody is saying that he literally went out of his way to personally screw over Toomes but it would be ridiculous to claim that Tony has no culpability or blame.

I personally see that as a case of the movie not knowing how to work Tony Stark into the story. Like they say Spider-Man in a Shared Universe, bring in Iron Man, but it basically amounts to Tony coming off as a condescending snob for most of the film. Like him basically calling Peter's decision to walk out a "Bruce Springsteen Working-Class Hero thing" smacks of that.

To repeat what I amended to my initial discussion point, I'm not intending to imply that Tony has no degree of personal culpability, but that trying to evaluate or imply the level of his culpability is speculative.

Given what the movie presents, the best an example could justify is a 50/50 split of responsibility (and even then it's Stark Industries that shoulders the responsibility) but the inclusion of the Executive Order complicates even that.

Therefore I'm saying trope examples that involve Tony's personal responsibility like Draco in Leather Pants shouldn't use this one situation as the only justification for the example.

I am not able to process that. You admit that Tony is not blameless but speculating about that level of blame is wrong. It sounds like you admit that there is a gray area but that people shouldn't debate about it. In either case, in YMMV, people can speculate and take direct stands on characters and stuff.

It would be wrong to say that on the main page but here you can.

I have added an entry in Informed Wrongness that might resolve all parties. Let's shift from blaming and accusing characters to blaming the film. Because ultimately this is a failure of plotting and communication in intent.

The film clearly wants Vulture to be a villain with understandable motivations and Tony Stark to be a good mentor, and Peter to be a hero with feet of clay. But the movie made the Vulture too sympathetic, made Tony Stark look too bad, and Peter look too dumb.

So that I think squares the circles here for all concerned.

I like the entry. I think it acknowledges the rough edges in the Homecoming story and it's impact on the characterization of Peter, Tony and Adrian.

Great then...

If Tony hadn't gotten involved at all, Toomes and his crew would've just cleaned up after the Avengers, collected their paychecks, and gone on their way. As someone who is very familiar the damage cleanup industry, I can personally tell you that "looking for a new contract or even a new line of work" is incredibly difficult and there are stories of people who've ruined themselves trying to do either.

Regardless of Toomes' decisions, Tony is in fact at least partially responsible for the circumstances that resulted in Toomes becoming a criminal. Stop being a Tony Stark apologist.

The MCU has established a pretty consistent pattern that Tony is a kind of Butt-Monkey who wants to atone but isn't good at atoning, so yes, I think we are supposed to see Toomes as "Another fine villain brought to you by Stark Industries." I mean Ultron is his fault after all, as is his Control Freak tendencies which has been established quite well. And that same tendency probably came out in his desire to more or less monopolize the Chitauri damage...

Lots of things in life are difficult. That's not an excuse to become a criminal because gosh, it's just so hard to not be evil.

Tony's as responsible for Toomes' decisions as Thor is for Loki's. As Strange is for Mordo's. As Cap is for Red Skull's. As Wonder Woman is for Ares'.

That's a very poor analogy. Thor wasn't responsible for Loki being a Frost Giant and for Odin lying to him about his heritage. Likewise, it wasn't Strange who lied to Mordo about the Ancient One's secrets. The Ancient One is...and Red Skull existed before Captain America, same with Ares.

Toomes had no prior criminal history, was a very old man with family, and had it not been for the Chitauri and Tony Stark, he would still be a law-abiding citizen. So I think yes, Tony Stark does deserve the blame for forcing Toomes to go rogue. Now whether Toomes could say have done something else, like say, parlay the Chitauri tech into civilian inventions or some other venture is an open question. And probably worth arguing in the WMG pages.

But there's more than enough for someone to come to a contrary opinion in the YMMV pages...

"Forcing Toomes to go rogue". Yeah, that was such a Tony thing to do when he went up to Toomes and said, "I'm going to need you to become evil now. Here's the schematics for this kick ass flight suit. And if you don't become evil, I'll throw you in prison for obstruction or something. I don't need a reason, I'm Tony Stark lel"

I'm putting the entries back to normal unless you can come up with a coherent, mature argument that disproves my first point. What would Toomes have done if Tony never created Damage Control?

I've already done that: getting dicked out of a contract doesn't justify becoming a criminal. Nor does "But it's so hard to find good work!"

What would Toomes have done if Tony never created Damage Control? What would Mordo have done if the Ancient One didn't agree to teach Strange? What would Loki have done if Odin hadn't adopted him. It's not relevant because Tony isn't responsible for Toomes' decisions on account of Toomes being a grown ass man who is responsible for his own mistakes and who doesn't get to blame everyone else for his own poor decisions.

It's Tony's fault that Toomes lost the contract to clean up New York. It's not Tony's fault that Toomes decided to become an arms dealer like, two seconds after he did that.

P.S. I've asked for some other opinions in the forum thread and will defer to them if they agree that Tony's at fault.

From the way Damage Control is framed, it seemed to be a way for Tony to try and ensure the fallout of the Chitauri invasion is managed by people who know something about dealing with alien weaponry and have clearance to do so. That's a move that's better for society as a whole, but a few people innocently get screwed over. It's similar to how increased focus on Green Energy is good for the world and for people in general, but not coal miners. Or how streamlined universal healthcare is good for those who are uninsured and can't afford healthcare, but the superfluous people who work in the health insurance industry don't want to lose their jobs.

I'd argue Tony's somewhat an unwitting instigator of doom, as he could not possibly have predicted that a disgruntled employee would end up becoming a supervillain. But honestly he's less responsible for what happened to Toomes than Toomes is for, say, anybody who lost their job because of what Toomes stole. And depending on how Damage Control is managed, Tony might not have had any control over who was hired or fired, or that might have been left to someone else.

For me the fundamental issue is, on a YMMV page, is there enough in the film for someone to form an opinion and blame Tony Stark or hold him partially responsible. Because extrapolating beyond that, and moralizing about that, is to me beside the point of the page. YMMV is about opinions, and someone on seeing the film is likely to form a critical opinion of Tony Stark's conduct within the film and some reviews have done that.

Create Your Own Villain is a trope that exists for a reason and even there, someone doesn't have to literally create the villain for that to work and have merit. Tony Stark doesn't have to literally force Toomes into villainy or be entirely responsible for his actions, but he does enough for the critical trope to work and have value.

Toomes is a vindictive old man with an inferiority complex mad at the Man, plain and simple. While Tony's actions may have paved the road of Toomes villiany, it was Toomes who ultimately decided to become a bad guy. Toomes had a job before the Avengers wrecked New York; Damage Control only works in disaster relating to the Avengers, therefore all other contracts were up for grabs.

So no, Tony is not resposible in any way, come on. Just because Toomes says so it doesn't make it true, since he's trying to rationalize his bad deeds.

1) This is a YMMV page and not a legal briefing where one can properly ajudge someone culpable or not. This isn't supposed to have a majority view to begin with. The only question is if the example fits the particular trope, if the trope is not Flame Bait or something else. That you disagree with someone describing or assigning blame to a character is already a sign that it's a subjective YMMV thing. So far this Discussion is a forum discussion on a character interpretation and not truly discussing if the example fits the trope. Such back-and-forth on what Toomes could or could not have done belongs on the Headscratchers/WMG page or the forums and not here...

2) Within the film it's clearly established that we are meant to empathize with Vulture. He's made into a family man, and he hides Peter's Secret Identity. So if we are going to say that he has no reasons whatsoever, then we have to admit that the film failed in communicating its intent. But from what I've read, the responses are clearly that we are supposed to identify with Vulture in some way or some form. And obviously the fact that some people have this response of seeing Tony as partially responsible means that the film did in fact communicate its intent.

3) Tony is not completely responsible for the Vulture, but he is partially responsible and he is accountable, and within the film and the wider MCU, Tony Stark is not a universally liked or likable figure. In-Universe, Hank Pym, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch have some dislike or grievance to him and they are sympathetic characters. So the idea that Tony being responsible for the Vulture is some new thing...especially when the following villains (Ultron, Zemo) were made by him or as consequences of his actions...is not borne out by the Worldbuilding of the MCU.

Since everyone has acknowledged that Tony is in fact responsible for Toomes losing the contract, that means everyone is acknowledging he does have partial responsibility for the creation of the Vulture. The entires are going back to the way they were.

Billed as the main characters where?

Is she in the opening main credits before the title of the film?

She's a supporting character and a supporting character can be an Ensemble Dark Horse. And yes a character can be both base-breaking and an Ensemble Darkhorse.

And I am not in favor of deleting ymmv opinions...there are entries for people who like the character and those who dislike her, I think that's fair.

Her actress got star billing on the credits, posters, press releases, etc. and appeared in almost as many interviews as Tom Holland. And from what I can tell from most examples of the trope, none of them are Base Breaking Characters to the extent she is.

Plus, there was a similar discussion about whether she should be listed as The Scrappy and that was axed because of the base breaking nature of the character. Since Ensemble Dark Horse is the inverse of The Scrappy, the same logic would apply.

To be honest, I don't get a lot of sense of her being base breaking let alone a conteder for The Scrappy. I certainly can tell from your edits that you particularly hate the character (I'm less sure if you hate the actress, but you certainly hate the character), but that doesn't necessarily support the idea of the character being base breaking.

For what it's worth, while I have noticed a couple of other tropers making hate edits similar to yours, so you are not alone, nearly all of the posters in the forum thread have commented on how much they liked the character.

Incidentally, maybe I should have brought this up here first, but I also noted this in Ask The Tropers, because there's obviously some edit warring going on both pro and con, but the con side seems to almost exclusively be yourself. And as I mentioned there, that Hype Backlash example you added about Michelle/Zendaya doesn't seem like an actual example, so much as it seems like straight up bashing.

It has nothing to do with her actress, and everything to do with the fact that being called MJ she is seemingly taking Mary Jane's place in the MCU.

Except she doesn't behave anything like any version of Mary Jane, and this rubs Mary Jane fans the wrong way as they've been waiting years to see a more faithful rendition of the character. Michelle taking her place makes those chances practically nil.

The MJ thing is Marvel having their cake and eating it too. They make an OC for diversity points and give her the MJ nickname to ride on the popularity of Peter's most popular love interest, while claiming this doesn't mean Mary Jane doesn't exist in the MCU as if this will calm the people that still want to see the real MJ in the movies.

So yeah, I do see her as a Base Breaking Character and Hype Backlash source for people that wanted to see Mary Jane Watson.

You might not see share this opinion, but again, YMMV.

Well, I was replying specifically to kquinn0830. And the Hype Backlash example I was referring to is this:

In a character example, Michelle got hit with this after the character (and her actress) was featured prominently in the trailers, ads, posters, press releases, and interviews, only for her to turn out to be a gag character who had no bearing on the plot compared to other characters like Ned, Liz, and Flash.

I think your post gets at why it's more complaining than an example. Because you and presumably he weren't hyped about Michelle in the first place. Like the example complains about her having to little of a presence even though the actual complaint is about the presence of the character- other posts by this troper are about disliking Michelle's character and not liking that she turned out to be Mary Jane.

And I guess my main issue is that it seems like after an attempt by a Vocal Minority to add the character as The Scrappy failed, there's now an effort to add the same character-bashing on any trope it can be shoehorned into.

I can totally understand that Hype Backlash entry. Zendaya was next to Tom since the very begining, news outlets were all over her, while Harrier barely got any promotion. For fucks sake, she features prominently in the posters, while Ned and Liz are nowhere to be seen.

And for all of that, at the end of the day she's just a minor gag character that comes and goes and does nothing important to the plot.

And yes, The Scrappy entry had to be deleted (she has quite a lot of fans in many places), but the whole MJ thing totally makes her a base breaking character. That's just the way things are.

But I think the point is that she isn't just a minor gag character, since she's Mary Jane (or at least "M.J." which amounts to the same thing).

I think "everyone" expected the twist going in because of all of that promotion, which was probably partly due to Zendaya being more well-known that Harrier, but is also because her character will likely be more prominent going forward. Although, I do wonder to what extent it has to do with their being a more unexpected twist concerning Harrier's character, and interestingly, when that twist was leaked, I believe it was initially ascribed to Zendaya's character.

Sorry, that's kind of long and rambling. I guess as a tl; dr, I can agree with the Base-Breaking Character being added, since she's definitely divisive, although I'm not positive whether this means she can't also be considered an Ensemble Dark Horse. It's kind of paradoxical in terms of whether you consider her character important to the story and whether or not that's a good thing.

My problem is more with entries that seem like roundabout attempts to add the character as The Scrappy/ excuses for character bashing. Because most of the earlier entries by the other troper were about complaining about the character's "attitude", and their complaint seemed to be about Zendaya being featured a lot in the first place.

I think YMMV largely is open to Vocal Minority. I mean that's the point of it isn't it. If one person feels that way and can articulate it by means of trope than they can include it.

Most people who come on T Vtropes, i.e. casual browsers, see the main page and pass on.

Complains about the character's attitude make sense to me, in light of the "call me MJ" thing.

She has no traits in common with Mary Jane whatsoever.

Like, that Unintentionally Unsympathetic entry that there was an edit war over makes complete sense to me.

A number of lines alude to her friendless statue, and her attitude through the movie, while funny, makes it totally understandable.

The biggest wtf her character gave me was her being in dentention just to sketch troublemakers. Funny in a movie context, but incredibly fucked up from a character perspective.

Also, she's such an antisocial side character that her "we're friends now" moment at the end kinda comes from out of nowhere (I understand it in the context of it comming after the DC trip where everyone almost died, but since the character is barely in the movie the attitude change at the end is quite the jump in characterization to me).

The point is this is YMMV and its meant to reflect that some fans find her unsympathetic. So it's not really whether she is "unsympathetic" in any real sense or not.

It doesn't really seem to be that big of an opinion. I'm tempted to write it off as a character with an unnecessary hatedom. Base-Breaking Character certainly, but not much backlash for her being allegedly unsympathetic.

Unintentionally Unsympathetic doesn't really need a big consensus to form. I mean Hermione in Order of the Phoenix has entries but that's not a majority view either...

I don't know much about Harry Potter so I can't debate that. But here, I can't understand the reasoning behind her being Unintentionally Unsympathetic. There's no indication that she's supposed to be sympathized with because she's friendless. The entry is written like that's how the film presents her but it really doesn't.

Well she fits the Hollywood Nerd thing in that she's supposed to be cool, witty and a Daria type...those drawings she does of the gym teacher, that comment about the Washington Monument. So those are parts we are intended to get behind...and obviously it doesn't work for some fans.

Then just list her as a Base-Breaking Character. It makes more sense than having her as Unintentionally Unsympathetic.

Look I didn't make the entry...just send a PM to the tropers who did that (look up the History)...I just don't think that reasoning is fair for deleting YMMV. You need a better reason than disagreeing with the other person's views.

I've listed why I feel that the entry makes no sense, but I'll take it to PM's then.

The reason cited for "Unintentionally Unsympathetic" (she tends to sit on the sidelines and snark about her classmates) doesn't strike me as all that strong. Deadpan Snarker is a trope with a lot of history, and it doesn't clarify why she's any worse than the hundreds of other characters who sit on the sidelines and watch their classmates' foibles. She's basically Daria in a superhero movie.

Basically what Tuckerscreator said is what I'm trying to say, plus what I keep stressing in that there's barely screentime to focus on her and make the audience think "Oh, we're supposed to sympathize with her because she has no friends". There's no scene where she's framed as sympathetic because of being a loner, she's just a gag character who's there for gags, no depth to her. I still propose the entry should be removed or at least fitted into the Base-Breaking Character trope.

Very well then go ahead and list the reason you give...since two people here agree to that, and I don't care either way. It's just that it's best to avoid an edit-war as much as possible.

Alright, I've gone ahead and removed it. Should be settled, then.