Marvel Cinematic Universe

If I'm not wrong thats where Doom capture the Purple Man, a.k.a Killgrave, and uses a machine so that he can use Kilgrave mi d control to rule over the world.

He also resisted Killgrave mind control with his willpower alone, so yeah, shilling to the max.

Interestingly for being such a perceived iconic Doom story, it’s not on unlimited yet

Which is the one where he steals Owen Reece's powers?

That's Secret War.

To note, I do think Doom is a pretty great villain and a lot of fun to have in a story. I think that reducing him to "Some asshole who hates Reed Richards 'cause he blew up his face" leaves out a lot of what made Doom such a great villain, and I'd love to see him as a Phase Big Bad.

But I do think writers (and readers) sometimes forget that he's a villain and, by extension, that authoritarianism is by its very premise bad. And that's where the Misaimed Fandom starts to settle in. "Would handing over all human rights to a brutal tyrant be a good idea?" is not a complicated question, and it doesn't really warrant the dignity of a prolonged debate.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 10th 2019 at 12:52:40 PM

That to me is the key to the character. You lead people on, like he wants to, look at his POV that he and he along can make things better, and then reality slaps the viewer in the face. Authoritarians are bad, Doom is bad, and if he was as benevolent as he claimed to be, he would have chosen a democratic system to run Latveria, and created something where the nation didn’t need him. All impossible for Doom to live with.

Basically, it's better for Doom to be a complex villain like Thanos and Killmonger, and not a Death Eater nor have Leather Pants.

Yeah, but the sticking point is still "Doom made the trains run on time."

Authoritarianism in media has a bad habit of getting a weirdly positive rap. There's usually an intended message about how brutal and evil they are and how it sucks if you're getting the shit end of the stick.

But the people who fall in line, salute der fuhrer, and look the other way? Those people live in golden palaces 20 Minutes into the Future! The economy is great, nobody's homeless or jobless (unless they're one of those undesirables), there's no crime or poverty or injustice, the country is stronger than it's ever been! Sucks about the human rights violations but I guess that's the price you pay to fly a jetpack to your cushy job as Wealth-Counter and then go home to your beautiful, well-fed family, amirite?

The Empire walks around sparkling hallways with cleaning droids while the Rebel Alliance is wearing leftover rags they dug out of a trash bin somewhere. It's easy to run into a Misaimed Fandom when you depict the brutal system as working out super-great, way better than we live in our shitty democracries, for anyone who just does what they're told and doesn't speak out. You can put the central message in your movie that dictatorship sucks, but it doesn't click with people if the dictatorship looks like a solid improvement over their own lives.

But. Historically. "Everyone who doesn't speak out lives in a hyper-futuristic wonderland!" has not actually been the experience of countries that embrace authoritarianism. Even if you're not the person being targeted for extermination, living in that kind of state still pretty much sucks.

The message of a Doom film should not be, "Brutal authoritarianism has great benefits, but do those benefits really outweigh the costs? Are Doom's methods right for my country?"

It should be "Brutal authoritarianism is just so awful. Just, THE worst. Why are we even talking about this?"

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 10th 2019 at 1:10:25 PM

Authoritarianism is, in theory, the most efficient form of government. Just play any sandbox game that lets you build bases or nations and you'll see how very easy it is to build an optimal system when your design and will are not held back by council or bureaucracy.

But it is flawed because it is run by a human. Even if you resurrected Fred Rogers and Bob Ross and fused them together into the most benevolent dictator ever, they would still run a flawed regime and quickly become a hated tyrant by the many people who suffer under it. That's why you add subsystems to a govermnent, sacrificing efficiency for balance and reduced human error, until you have something semi-workable like a republic or a democracy.

I always saw Doom as believing he is that hypothetical infalliable being who can make a dictatorship work by virtue of having no human error, when in reality he's just as flawed if not moreso than everyone else. He just won't admit it, and wears his accomplishments like a figurative mask the same way he wears a piece of metal as a literal mask.

Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Sep 10th 2019 at 3:13:11 PM

I want to give props to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for this in their first season, now that I think about it. The MCU's never hesitated to call out Hydra's authoritarian philosophy as unworthy of debate, and there's a moment between S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Skye and a Hydra agent that perfectly encapsulates the debate.

Hydra dude tries to start in on explaining his side of things and Skye's just like, "You are LITERALLY a Nazi. I am NOT having this conversation with a f*cking NAZI."

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 10th 2019 at 1:13:44 PM

But that's the thing. It wouldn't change anything if they made Doom rule a total dystopia. The misaimed Fandom that you mention will simply say that Doom failed to do a good job.

Even if people misunderstand, the message that no matter what benefits, wether it be great economy, no poverty, getting flying car, etc, it's woths the price of freedom, and human rights. No matter how many times the message has to be delivered.

Indeed,that's the other message that needs to be delivered. There's no infallible being that could run a dictatorship as an utopia, without sacificating some human rights.

Edited by eligram on Sep 10th 2019 at 3:15:54 PM

I don't know that that really tracks. Present day Hydra, at least, doesn't seem to have any sort of racial component to its authoritarian mindset.

And authoritarian regimes usually have something to offer to people, otherwise they wouldn't have gotten into power in the first place, or retained enough of a loyal base to stay in power. Dictators with Zero Percent Approval Ratings don't tend to last long.

Of course, they were manufacturing threats so people would surrender to them, so...

Joseph Stalin stayed in power for 30 years. He was 74 years old when he died, and even then he probably wasn't murdered; the possibility has been raised, but has little support.

Even then, his legacy of brutality would last another 40 years beyond him.

In a dictatorship, you underestimate how much "NOT dragging you into the street and shooting you in the face" counts as something to offer to people. Authoritarian dictators generally don't have to worry about maintaining their PR for re-election. Even in countries that technically have elections, but suffered the misfortune of acquiring one anyway. (coughcoughHitler)

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 10th 2019 at 1:29:28 PM

Present-HYDRA offered security to people. Security from threats (perceived or otherwise) that HYDRA itself created (even partially) or at least deliberately made worse so that more people would be so terrified that they would value the "security" that HYDRA presented more than the freedoms that HYDRA needed them to give up in order to have power.

Edited by TrashJack on Sep 10th 2019 at 3:31:30 PM

Yeah, that's typically the "benefit" to authoritarianism in and of itself. That and empty nationalism.

Authoritarianism is not: "I have loads of money and fly a jetpack to my cool job in my shiny golden office building. Sucks about all the undesirables getting killed, though."

It's "I have no money and my family is eating cardboard to survive, because the Emperor took all of our money and food to build a private garden the size of a football stadium for himself. But at least there's no crime, 'cause of how the stormtroopers shoot people for jaywalking. And that garden sure does make our country look amazing! It sure is great to be a part of this glorious empire! That is the thought that sustains me as I munch my cardboard turkey."

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 10th 2019 at 1:54:27 PM

That's not strictly accurate. Even in the most brutal authoritarianism, there is an elite that enjoys the fruits of their society and lives in pomp and luxury. These are the people who depend the most on the ruler for their status, and have the most to lose if they disappoint him.

Yes, there is always an elite class. But they tend to be a minority of the population, and not reflective of the common citizen's experience.

Every king has his nobles, so to speak.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 10th 2019 at 1:57:59 PM

One of the few good things about Solo, as awkward as it was, was that it showed civilian life wasn't better under the Empire than the Republic. Crime increased, and the Empire was fine with letting gangs like Proxima's and Crimson Dawn be de facto rulers of territories so long as they didn't cross Imperial laws too much. The Empire preached a myth about peace and order they had little care about actually enforcing, letting mercenaries take care of the stuff their secret police wouldn't bother to handle.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Sep 10th 2019 at 1:13:03 AM

The original trilogy really didn’t go much into civilian life aside from the possibility that the Empire might just fucking blow up your planet, huh?

I imagine they were just glad the clone wars were over

Let’s not forget Uncle Owen and Aunt Aunt.

The Empire practically took advantage of the galaxy's exhaustion of being in a massive war to make them accept their rule as a relaxing alternative.

That's kind of the thing yeah.

I get pretty testy whenever any story or person brings up the question of "would sacrificing freedom/human rights be worth it for a safer, more efficient society" because, even if the answer to that question is "fuck no it isn't", it's still giving credence to authoritarianism by feeding into the idea that it's more efficient. It's not. See Repressive, but Efficient. There is no real advantage in the majority of cases to have a prolonged authoritarian rule. In fact, it only really brings downsides.

> would sacrificing freedom/human rights be worth it for a safer, more efficient society

For some reason they insist a super smart AI could it without problems

Oh no, we thought about the super AI, now the super AI is going to torture the simulation of us in the future.