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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
That’s my point. Authoritarianism doesn’t work because of the system. Doom hides it behind the veneer of social advancement and benevolence, but at the end of the day if he truly wanted to help people, he wouldn’t have created an authoritarian government.
As for Tony, I’m reminded of the ending to the Marvel Super Heroes arcade game where he rejects the power of the Infinity Gauntlet, only to later realize he inadvertently used it to heal his nervous system, which in itself is a cause of immense guilt. People like him wouldn’t be benevolent dictators because they would reject the throne of dictatorship in the first place.
In a hypothetical "Fake Utopia Latveria" film, I'd like Doom to have a snobbish classist meltdown about its discovery.
- Doom: Look at the greatness Doom has built! See my 150-foot monument of Doom! Do you think it could have been built by the hands of volunteers?! See the mountains of wealth Doom has collected; could it have been made through donations?! Could Doom's military might have been assembled by request?! Doom has made Latveria great, like never before!
- Protagonist: You talk about your wealth and your monuments, but how does that help your people? Everything you've done was to make yourself great. Not Latveria.
- Doom: Doom's greatness IS Latverian greatness!
Something like that. But less poorly written.
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Tony using the Infinity Gauntlet to heal himself?
Yeah, there's a reason I added the Harsher in Hindsight entry to the page.
Edited by chasemaddigan on Sep 10th 2019 at 11:11:25 AM
All of this talk about Doom's "benevolent tyrant" being a facade just reminds of the one benevolent tyrant that does work: Lord Vetinari, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork. And the reason why Vetinari works while others don't is, well, he has his own set of checks and balances, exemplified by his appointment of Samuel Vimes as the Commander of the City Watch, someone he knows will stop him if he goes too far (Vimes is the only person to shout and berate Vetinari and live). He is also dedicated to improving the lives of Ankh-Morpork's citizens, basically turning a lawless city into a city that a bit less chaotic, where people won't be randomly killed if they go into the wrong alleyway. Still: he is a tyrant and quite ruthless, even if that ruthlessness is in service of the city itself (or in order to get rid of mimes).
Edited by alliterator on Sep 10th 2019 at 8:47:04 AM
I remember that at a crossover between Marvel Zombies and Evil Dead, Dr. Doom recently infected sends the surviving citizens of Latveria to another universe and then destroys the machine to make sure the zombies can't follow them.
Although he later admits that he only did it to annoy Reed Richards, instead of genuine kindness.
A moment that would look like a Pet the Dog turned out to be an example of Evil Is Petty.
"Yeah, whether they ultimately decide to have skew more towards good or evil, Mordo is Strange's Loki and they're probably not going to throw him under the bus in favor of someone else's villain."
To be fair, Loki was killed in the first minutes of Infinity War to show us how dangerous Thanos is.
Edited by JoLuRo075 on Sep 10th 2019 at 9:10:36 AM
After four movies appearances including two where he was the main villain, yes.
Loki's death was the cap of a long arc as a villain slowly transitioning into a hero, and Thanos' role as his killer was part of that arc due to how Thanos' role grew out of Loki's.
It wasn't a random "here's a new bad guy, look at him beat an old bad guy."
Edited by KnownUnknown on Sep 10th 2019 at 9:13:28 AM
About two pages ago, there was talk of the Enchantress, she could be introduced in the Loki series or Thor 4 and become a major villain, being the right hand of Dr. Doom
Why right hand and not a Big Bad Duumvirate?
Amora may be a well-known villain, but I can't imagine her being on par with Dr. Doom.
Edited by JoLuRo075 on Sep 10th 2019 at 9:18:49 AM
I mean, I don't see why it wouldn't work a succesful "utopia" where poberty, insecurity and more doesn't exist anymore, but as the film progresses you see that the price they paid is no freedom in any way, living under a oppressive rule akin to Nineteen Eighty-Four, and a culture being formed around the truth that doom is their only savior.
After all, it is necesary to show that Utopia Justifies the Means is a really bad thing, and all that.
The only bad thing about Doom would be, that for his defeat it is necesary the freedom of Larveria from his rule, and depending how it's aproached, it can come distastyful that it was thanks too to Americans heroes. Are there any Latverian heroe from the comics?
The real world reason is that if a people are well fed and have spare time because technology has improved their lives, they can start moving up Maslow's hierarchy of needs and start worrying about things like liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
In 1984 for example, life sucked. Even besides the possibility of being secret policed.
Forever liveblogging the AvengersIn theory. In practice, however, she often gets bested with hilarious ease, either by fellow wizards or by people who don't even use magic like Sif or Monet St. Croix.
I think their best bet for Amora is to make her a magic knight like they did with Loki and the wizards from Dr. Strange. I can't see the vain sorceress winning many people over. Especially after Hela.
Here's an idea: in Fate/ Grand Order, there's an alternative reality where Shi Huang Di, the founder and first Emperor of China, never died and eventually conquered the whole world, ushing out an ideal paradise, where there's a medicine that heals all wounds, there's no war and everyone lives happy agrarian, simple lives without any sort of grief.
Except the medicine also cuts short a person's life after a certain point(therefore getting rid of the evils plaguing humanity according to Buddhism AKA old age), everyone is kept illiterate and ignorant, with people not having a name or even a concept of individuality, and any form of culture or art is termed 'Confucian' and immediately destroyed, and overall the people who live in this are less "people" and closer to farm animals.
Latveria could work in a similar manner: somewhere which looks utopic on the surface, and to an extent it might even be, but with horrifying implications beneath the surface.
If you think about it, authoritarianism is the Original Position Fallacy taken to its logical extreme.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Admittedly that makes me want to see something in this hypothetical Doom film, the idea of people not believing the regime could turn against them, until it does, independent of the actions of the heroes. Too often a Misaimed Fandom just goes “it would have been fine if the hero had just stayed home.” If it happens independently of say, the Fantastic Four, that excuse goes out the window.
When Doom is portrayed as having improved the quality of life in Latveria, it's generally stated to be because of all the technological advancements he has introduced, rather than because of any policies he's enacted as its ruler. He could have introduced all those technological advancements without demanding absolute subservience from the populace; that he chose to do so anyway is what makes him a villain.
So authoritarianism didn't make Latveria a better place. Doom personally made Latveria a better place, and used that as the basis for establishing his authoritarian rule.
Perhaps worth noting here is that in the aforementioned game, once Huang Di sees for himself what "proper" history AKA ours has created, he admits it is more worth of continuing existing and chooses to help the protagonist team destroy his own timeline (long story), becoming a Guardian dedicated to protecting humanity.
Doom hardly seems like the sort of dude who'd admit he's wrong regardless of the piles of evidence you put in front of him.
"Amora's limitation is that her ambition isn't on the same scale as villains like Doom. As far as actual power goes, she's a heavy-hitter."
Assuming that Amora is the main villain of the Loki series or Thor 4, I hope her ambitions and motivations are different from the comics, to make her more credible as Big Bad.
IIRC, there was a story once where Doom successfully conquers the world and brings about world peace and ends all conflict and everyone lives in a magical paradise forever. But then Doom gets bored and resets the timeline because it's no fun for him or some shit. I don't know, I've only ever heard about this story second-hand, but it's about the Doom-shillingest thing a person could possibly write.
There was also Secret War (not to be confused with the Beyonder's Secret War or Nick Fury's Secret War), where the entire multiverse is destroyed but Doom is able to salvage some of the worlds and make a new patchwork universe from the floatsam, with himself as Almighty God. But he kinda sucked as God and Reed Richards was able to take his power and recreate the multiverse instead.
That was less Doom-shilling.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 10th 2019 at 12:37:20 PM
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A film can’t help its Misaimed Fandom, whether it’s people founding Fight Clubs, saying Thanos was right, etc. It just needs to present its characters and then say why they’re right or wrong. And in Doom’s case, he’s wrong because it’s all a giant ego trip for him.
No, he's wrong because authoritarianism is bad, regardless of whether the dictator's an egomaniac or not. It doesn't matter if it's Doom or Thanos or Tony Stark or Steve Rogers; a dictator's throne is a recipe for disaster no matter which ass rests upon it.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 10th 2019 at 9:01:53 AM
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