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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
Sure and that would probably be a great story in of itself, but it's no place in a greater narrative what very strongly carrying a message of working people who are being screwed over by an uncaring exploitative system that gives no shits about the little guy.
We don't need a token good rich guy to prove that rich people aren't all evil, the same way Jessica Jones didn't need a token good white guy to prove that white guys aren't all evil.
It's like having a story about minority characters overcoming minority problems and issues, then suddenly dropping a white guy into the group for some reason.
Being able to grow up in a society where being rich doesn't matter sure sounds like a massive rich people privilege.
edited 13th Dec '15 11:24:24 AM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranI really don't think there is an "overall narrative" to the Netflix shows. So far, we've had Daredevil (which looked at corruption, mainly, while also commenting on gentrification) and Jessica Jones (which looked at abuse, trauma, and PTSD). We don't know what Luke Cage will be about, nor do we know what Iron Fist will look like.
Heck, if you really think about, you can already see there is a "rich person" dropped in the middle of the story: Trish Walker.
edited 13th Dec '15 11:33:23 AM by alliterator
How is corporate corruption/gentrification and abuse by the powerful/the unwillingness of the system to help the abused, not a theme of the little guy being hurt by an uncaring system? Now sure Luke Cage could look at something totally different, but I'd be very surprised if it doesn't include commentary of how the uncaring profit focused system runs roughsot over the little guy again and again.
Also for the society, is it somehow magically a society without class? If so then it sure sounds like a fictional utopia, possibly out of an Ayn Rand book. B Ut otherwise I'm having a hard time it actually was a society where being rich didn't matter, if he was a student then eh was still presumably one of the elite wealthy few who could afford the trip there and become a student, instead of say a servant who cleaned the place. Now I could be wrong, I don't know Iron Fist's backstory, but it's sounding a lot like Batman right now.
As for Trish, she's not a main character, she's a supporting character and she's still someone who's shown to work hard, plus she's a radio host, that's a high end job but it's a far cry for being someone who owns an entire cooperation.
It's not just that, we've had two series about the little guy who gets ignored/discarded by society because he/she is in the way of big money/power or simply "not important", it's a big narrative leap to suddenly have a series about a rich guy who is very much an elite in society and would never be ignored or discarded by society.
edited 13th Dec '15 11:43:39 AM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranJust a shot in the dark, call me crazy
Luke Cage will probably be some sort of commentary on race.
My various fanfics.I see the Netflix shows as "Marvel Cinematic Universe but Darker and Edgier". How that darkness is achieved is incidental, to me.
So saying that Iron Fist would break the themes of the other 2 shows is kinda opinion-base, not any type of fact, in my opinion.
edited 13th Dec '15 11:48:31 AM by VeryMelon
Greater MCU class diversity, the same way that Jessica Jones having all the main good guys characters be non-white non-men was good for diversity. The MCU already has plenty of heros that are"big people" who are hugely important to the world, own companies or are brilliant scientists, people who don't face the day to day challenges of real people, we need greater representation for the people who face the challenges of real people.
X3 See I'd say it's more then just dark, it's a specific kind of dark, the darkness faced by the ignored and oppressed, the darkness faced by the little people that society deems not worthy of its attention.
It's going to be hard to achieve that if they're using a character who is not ignored or oppressed, not a little person and as the owner of a large company certainly not someone that society deems not worthy of its attention.
edited 13th Dec '15 12:24:32 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran![]()
Do we need reminding that there are rich people who care about the little guy? Again, we didn't need reminding that there are good white men out there in Jessica Jones, why do we need reminding that there are good rich people out there? Yeah I guess showing him as an outsider to the group could work, it's just that we have so many stories about rich/well off heroes, can't we have something different? Can't we please have this one group to represent a massive segment of society that's ignored? Without having to have a token good rich guy?
It wasn't meant to, it was meant to show my specific opinion which is slightly more narrow in definition then yours.
edited 13th Dec '15 12:38:35 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranI think the snobbism of the little man is just as bad if not worse as the snobbism of the rich.
You know what is really underrepresented? The upper middle class! Somehow superheroes are usually crazy rich, struggling with their finances or they are some kind of soldier or spy. We need more "well off but not crazy rich people who are able to make a decent living beside being superheroes".
Daniel Rand was the son of Wendell and Heather Rand. He was just a baby when Wendell decided to go on a trip to find the hidden city of K'un L'un and Heather and his business partner went him. Business partner kills Wendell and Heather and her baby are left to fend for themselves. She gets killed by wolves just as she makes it to the gates of K'un L'un, where baby Danny is taken in by Lei Kung the Thunderer and placed with all the other students who lived and trained in K'un L'un.
As you can see: 1) Danny was a baby when his parents died, so he had no idea he was rich at all until he came back to New York. 2) Even if he did know, the people in K'un L'un wouldn't have cared, they treated him just like every other student who was there to train. (And no, it's never said that the students are all "elite" and that's why they're there - most of them simply came from K'un L'un itself.) 3) And yes, it is quite a fictional utopia, although based on Asian mythology more than the European utopias or the Randian rich-people utopia. In fact, it's one of the Seven Capital Cities of Heaven.
edited 13th Dec '15 12:55:30 PM by alliterator
It's going to be hard to achieve that if they're using a character who is not ignored or oppressed, not a little person and as the owner of a large company certainly not someone that society deems not worthy of its attention.
You are aware that Daredevil stars a guy who could afford to go to law school, would be a rising star at a large corporate law firm if he hadn't resigned on moral grounds, and lets people think he needs the help an ordinary blind person would, when really he can "see" better than anyone, right?
I'm not getting ignored and oppressed coming off him.
I mean, "can afford to go to law school" isn't necessarily a marker of wealth. Murdock grew up basically impoverished. I actually don't remember if the show ever said where that money came from, but it could've been a scholarship or something. Either way, he's impoverished now. "He could've been rich if he'd chosen to fuck over the little people" doesn't mean "he's actually rich."
Also, he does need the help other blind people do. He can't read except for braille, for one thing. Anything involving colors or details that don't leave a texture are out of his range. These aren't handicaps in combat, and he does indeed have it a lot better than most blind people, but that doesn't mean he's got no problems at all.
edited 13th Dec '15 1:50:15 PM by Wackd
Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.No one wants to live with massive windows next to massive glowing eyesore billboards but him, for obvious reasons.
edited 13th Dec '15 1:57:07 PM by Wackd
Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.It's never stated outright, but several times we see him take off his gloves and run his fingers over paper, implying he's reading the ink by texture.
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.

Being rich isn't one of the things that defines Danny Rand, not like it does Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark, probably because he simply grew up in a society where that didn't matter. A lot of writers simply ignore him being rich to tell different stories - the whole "Seven Capital Cities of Heaven" arc is actually set in K'un L'un and the only part where him being rich comes in is for the subplot where the head of Rand International turns out to be kind of corrupt and funding evil ninjas (just go with it).
But, on the other hand, him being rich does provide a sort of counterpoint to characters like Tony Stark. Where Stark flaunts his riches, Rand doesn't really care about money at all. Like I wrote before, after finding out the shady things his company was doing, he basically started dismantling it and donating all of his money to charity, which is how much he doesn't care about being rich.