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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
Better to look weak than to be dead, at any rate.
PSN ID: FateSeraph | Switch friendcode: SW-0145-8835-0610 Congratulations! She/TheyIt's also often forgotten T'challa actually beats him down early on in the fight, but T'challa (being T'challa) tries to get him to yield rather than go for the killing strike, which gives Killmonger time to recover. Meanwhile Killmonger is always going for the kill.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."One thing that really rankles me about Black Panther is the bit where Killmonger dies and says "like my ancestors who jumped from slave ships" or something and I wanted someone to tell him to shut the hell up.
How is your situation similar in the slightest? Yeah, you had a bit of a rough upbringing but you tried to declare war on the entire world. Do not act like you're the injured party here.
Like, Black Panther acts like Killmonger's got a point and he really, really doesn't. He's just a psycho, and worse acts smug and superior to everyone else he meets in the film.
edited 26th Apr '18 6:28:26 AM by Sigilbreaker26
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"Especially because, as far as I know, they don't actually reform the domestic political system of Wakanda at all, they just change their foreign policy. So there's nothing keeping this whole situation from happening all over again next time someone of royal blood shows up who's better at stabbing than the current king.
I'm talking about things like the fact that the have tech for energy weapons and nanotech armor, but their warriors use spears and shields. There's a huge disconnect between their high tech stuff (they have aircraft with what seems to be Stark-style repulsor tech, optical camouflage, and energy cannons), and their "African" stuff (their warriors fight with spears and knives — but they're super advanced highly technological spears and knives, trust us!). I can't think of any reasonable Watsonian reason for their warriors to use traditional dress and melee weapons (but vibranium, so that makes them high tech!) instead of vibranium armor and energy guns, and the only Doylist reason for it is "so it feels more African".
That's my complaint. Not that "it feels too African, so it can't be advanced", but "it feels like they're deliberately using less-advanced tech than they have available so that they can match African stereotypes instead". Like, they have war rhinos. Why the hell do they have rhino cavalry? They can build repulsor-tech gunships with energy cannons and optical camo. They can build bulletproof vibranium cars that are indistinguishable from conventional vehicles. They can build friggen hoverbikes (though that may just have been trolling). But they still have dudes riding around on rhinos? How does that make any sense?
The impression I'm left with is that Shuri basically doesn't give a shit about non-Wakandans. I'm certain that this wasn't intentional — she's supposed to be irreverent and snarky, not callous and self-absorbed — but the way she treats Ross and the way she treats the outside world as an opportunity to play with cool tech rather than a place filled with real people with real lives that are affected by her actions made me dislike her. That could have been a good starting point for some solid character development (have her dismissive of the "primitive" outsiders, flip the whole condescending "starving children in Africa" attitude on its head, and eventually have her realize that hey, maybe she shouldn't be down on a group of people whose problems are partially a result of her own nation's actions), but they didn't do anything like that. Yes, she's excited to do science outreach stuff at the end of the movie, but again — she's excited because she gets to do science stuff, not because she gets to help improve people's lives.
How is your situation similar in the slightest?
Shuri cheesed me off as well, but more when she makes a wisecrack at the coronation which is... I can barely imagine how monumentally disrespectful that is, not just because it's an old ceremony of national importance but because it's her brother being made king. That's like interrupting a wedding ceremony, this is one of your sibling's most important days in their life, just shut up for ten minutes for goodness sake.
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"The plot of Black Panther is basically:
Killmonger: "This country of yours, beautiful and majestic it may be, is kind of fucked up and has some damn problems, specifically with its isolationism. I'm gonna take over and end that by declaring war on the world."
T'Challa: "You're going too far, but the basic gist of what you're saying is right."
She was also disrespecting the tradition that everyone has been calling out as stupid so in a way she's the voice of the internet people
edited 26th Apr '18 9:26:02 AM by Bocaj
Forever liveblogging the Avengers
x3 I... don't think she does? At least, I don't think I remember a moment where she does.
x2 The thing is Killmonger's means and ends are both so evil that I can't buy "but he has a point!" at all.
The fighting bit aside she also disrespects the actual ceremony, which is really important and just makes her look selfish and childish.
edited 26th Apr '18 9:30:09 AM by Sigilbreaker26
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"Shuri says “we didn’t even get to bury him” after T’Challa’s death, while looking absolutely devastated. Burial is brought up multiple times as significant/important to Wakandan tradition. She makes an attempt to interrupt M’Baku, but then holds her peace. She offers to take T’Challa to her lab (modern/not tradition), but when that isn’t feasible, she joins her mother in the ritual chant to the ancestors to revive T’Challa using the heart shaped herb.

Disregarding the fact the ritual combat for the throne is a key feature of the comics and taking it out would be tantamount to taking out the shield Captain America uses, ritual combat to settle political debates was said to have happened in ancient Egypt, with artwork of the time of Ramses III featuring Egyptians and Nubians competing for sovereignty via wrestling challenges, complete with one artwork featuring Ramses III himself fighting against a Nubian wrestler. Whether this is factual, political propaganda or metaphor is unknown but it is known that ancient Egyptians practiced wrestling as a political activity to compete for the Pharaoh's favor and given that Wakanda worships a variation of the Egyptian pantheon...
The other source for the ritual Wakandan combat is the Angolan martial art of Engolo used for ritual combats, sometimes for fun, sometimes for religious reasons, and sometimes as a rite of passage.
At any rate, in the film itself it is very clear the ritual combat is an old tradition that stuck around in a mostly ceremonial manner. When M'baku arrives to challenge T'challa everyone is stunned, with T'challa himself being confused to the point of asking "What are you doing here?" (to which M'baku answers the obvious: to challenge him), because it's clear no one has invoked that right to challenge in a long time. When Killmonger challenges T'challa his entire tribal council apart from W'kabi protests and one of them tells him to tell Killmonger to go fuck himself (in essence). It's T'challa's Honor Before Reason that makes him give in and accept the challenge.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."