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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
Was a trial pending, though? We are given no insight into the legal process. Ross certainly doesn't seem like the kind of person who is inclined to give his prisoners a right to counsel, and what if the court lets them post bail? He's also acting well outside his authority: the military does not have powers of arrest and incarceration unless the suspects are soldiers during wartime or are enemy combatants.
The Accords effectively give nations the ability to declare superhumans to be "enemy combatants" and imprison them without trial. This is grossly unconstitutional.
Scott Lang and Clint are special cases because they are ordinary people: they don't have superpowers, just fancy skills and/or a super suit. The legal system is perfectly capable of coping with them... well, as long as they aren't idiots like the cops in Ant-Man and the Wasp, but I digress.
Edited by Fighteer on Sep 7th 2021 at 2:26:47 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"That is what we are meant to believe, sure. But they can be declared "enemy combatants" for the simple act of crossing national borders without permission, and things like that are grossly unconstitutional. Treaties cannot abrogate Constitutional rights.
Now that I think of it, Scott and Clint clearly did receive trials and sentences. So maybe that all happened offscreen for the others as well.
Edited by Fighteer on Sep 7th 2021 at 2:28:04 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Funnily enough, Peter's pre-power characterization in the very early comics was that of a bitter misanthropic loner. Linkara even joked in his Amazing Fantasy #15 review that he sounded at times like a potential school shooter in the making.
Edited by lbssb on Sep 7th 2021 at 11:28:16 AM
Disney100 Marathon | DreamWorks Marathon@Fighteer:
You're making a lot of assumptions there.
Yes, Ross is not someone inclined to respect the legal rights of prisoners, but it's not like he's God-Emperor of the Accords. What he wants and what the Accords require to happen are not the same thing.
And we only get two indications of superpowered people being treated differently under the Accords. One is how Wanda is kept physically restrained while in her cell (which is presumably necessary to keep her from ripping the cell open with a flick of her fingers). The other is how she was confined to Avengers mansion because she didn't have a visa to enter the U.S., and they weren't inclined to give one to "a weapon of mass destruction".
There's nothing to indicate that superpowered people aren't still afforded the right to a fair trial under the Accords.
Edited by RavenWilder on Sep 7th 2021 at 11:32:57 AM
Well, I never watched anything that detailed the treatment of the Avengers who went to the Raft, so I can't speak from firsthand knowledge. The films almost entirely gloss over the legal issues associated with incarcerating superhumans, so at best we can perform analyses based on guesswork.
The Sokovia Accords, as presented in Captain America: Civil War, violate numerous rights in the U.S. Constitution, and presumably also rights assigned by the European Union and other national/regional constitutions. They grant summary judicial power to national militaries and suspend habeas corpus, among other things. Given Ross' on-screen behavior, we must assume that he was more than willing to exercise the powers granted by the Accords.
That said, I do not see any way for the judicial systems that we currently have to deal effectively with superhumans. The challenges they present are outside anything that the people who wrote our laws and constitutions could possibly have anticipated. It is a very real ethical dilemma.
When gods walk among us, the laws meant for people simply don't apply to them.
Edited by Fighteer on Sep 7th 2021 at 2:40:21 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Which is the definition of torture, and violates several Geneva Convention statutes on prisoner treatment (which is why I'm thinking Wanda would win if she sued the government for this). And given the events of Black Widow, Wanda was being held in those conditions for several weeks. Several weeks locked in solitary confinement for 24 hours a day, unable to move because of the straitjacket and being shocked whenever the guards felt like it.
Realistically, Wanda would be suffering from severe PTSD and severe mental and physical health problems from being held in those conditions, like having trouble socializing with others, getting depressed or suicidal, suffering from mood swings and/or hallucinations.
What Tony did is the same thing as people of Japanese descent (like Jim Morita) being locked up in internment camps.
Honestly, I would've preferred if Wanda took her stand right then instead of begrudgingly accepting the house arrest until Clint broke her out, with an exchange like this.
- Vision: Mr. Stark would like to avoid the possibility of another public incident. Until the Accords are on a...more secured foundation.Wanda: And what do you want?Vision: For people to see you...as I do.Wanda: But you and Stark don't want people to see me at all, do you?Vision: No, that's not-Wanda: Vision, I grew up in a country where people were locked up for saying things that those in power didn't like, or just for being different. I'm leaving. You can't stop me.
Edited by dmcreif on Sep 7th 2021 at 2:52:44 PM
Okey Dokey!Wanda is complicated. Realistically, Tony's house arrest is questionable and her incarceration at the Raft is abhorrent. But if we go down that rabbit hole then, realistically, Wanda shouldn't have ever been in this position to begin with. She should have been arrested, made to stand trial in South Africa for her crimes in Johannesburg, and never appeared in an Avengers film again.
The MCU is simultaneously unreasonably lenient yet also brutally harsh about Wanda's actions throughout the series. Every good deed gets viciously punished and every bad deed is swept under the rug with a nonchalant whistle. It's the weirdest thing.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 7th 2021 at 12:02:05 PM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Ya know, given that Nat changed sides, and both Cap and Bucky where still fugitives, and beated freaking Ironman, maybe the logic was to mantain the captured Avengers on the Raft as it was the "most secure" prison on Earth while putting the trials on hold until they managed to capture Cap and co. to avoid them rescuing them.
Not that it changed anything, Cap managed to free them easyly after all, but you can see the logic.
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Again, where are you getting all this from?
I don't recall anything in the movie mentioning habeas corpus or summary judicial power.
All I got from it was that, under the Accords, governments will actually start enforcing the laws that the Avengers, being vigilantes, routinely broke. Ross appears to be in charge of enforcing those laws, arresting and detaining anyone doing unregistered Avenging, but given the short timespan of the film, we never see things get as far as the judicial stage.
And that's just going from Civil War. When you factor in what we see of Scott and Clint afterwards, it's clear that not only is there a somewhat fair legal process in play, it can even be astonishingly lenient in cases.
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Wanda's imprisonment does get into the thorny issue Fighteer mentioned. Under our current laws, restraining someone like that is absolutely a violation of human rights. But then, in our world, such restraints would be utterly unnecessary, and only done for the sake of tormenting the captive. So what do you do in a reality where all forms of imprisonment considered humane are also utterly ineffective against a given individual?
x3 That'd be one thing if the Raft was basically "a place for extremely violent or dangerous criminals to be held while awaiting trial," but no.
- Wanda is complicated. Realistically, Tony's house arrest is questionable and her incarceration at the Raft is abhorrent. But if we go down that rabbit hole then, realistically, Wanda shouldn't have ever been in this position to begin with. She should have been arrested, made to stand trial in South Africa for her crimes in Johannesburg, and never appeared in an Avengers film again.
The MCU is simultaneously unreasonably lenient yet also brutally harsh about Wanda's actions throughout the series. Every good deed gets viciously punished and every bad deed is swept under the rug with a nonchalant whistle. It's the weirdest thing.
I'm going to probably draw some ire by saying I cut Wanda slack for Johannesburg because, well...how was she supposed to know Bruce would Hulk out and travel 300 miles in three minutes? (The shipyard's on the coast, and Johannesburg is landlocked) The way everything plays out, I think she only thought Bruce would be rendered catatonic like Thor, Steve and Natasha were.
Edited by dmcreif on Sep 7th 2021 at 3:15:40 PM
Okey Dokey!She specifically went after Bruce who wasn't actively involved prior, don't see a argument where she does that without intending to set off Hulk.
Edited by Cross on Sep 7th 2021 at 3:31:23 PM
God, the lengths people will go to absolve Wanda of Johannesburg or any of her other numerous crimes against humanity.
Hell, I love Wanda as a character and find her a compelling character, but come on. Let her evil deeds be evil deeds, let her mistakes be mistakes.
You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!She specifically went after Bruce to provide Ultron with a distraction that would pull the Avengers away from him. And referred to doing so as "finishing the plan".
Weaponizing the Hulk was unambiguously premeditated. She set out to do exactly what she did, in full knowledge of what she was doing.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 7th 2021 at 12:31:00 PM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Nick Spencer's Spider-Man series pointed out that not all of Spider-Man's bad publicity is Jameson's fault - between his secret identity, loner status, often hostile attitude to other superheroes and the times he has harassed and even threatened Jameson, it isn't too surprising the public didn't like or trust him very often.
Raven Wilder already pointed out that this is inaccurate.
What does Black Widow have to do with this? Wanda never appears in that movie and there is nothing to suggest she was being shocked by the guards.
Because that is what she wanted. I can't believe people are still sticking to this head canon that Wanda never intended for the Hulk to attack Johannesburg. She has no reason to go after Bruce in the first place if that wasn't the case.
Edited by windleopard on Sep 7th 2021 at 12:31:49 PM
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I think that derives from a more fundamental problem people have, which is that accepting that a character can be both good and bad. They expect uncomplicated narratives that don't challenge any of their ideas nor indeed raise any ethical concerns, and when that happens the cognitive dissonance rises up.
Edited by Fighteer on Sep 7th 2021 at 3:31:51 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"There's what the audience knows and what the characters know, and I doubt Wanda knows everything the audience knows.
That's where my assumption that Wanda doesn't know the Hulk ran several hundred miles to attack a city comes from. And there's the question of whether or not anyone told her what the Hulk did after she hexed him. And the fact that she probably didn't have access to any TVs while on Ultron's base.
From the fact that the other Avengers are all in one piece the next time Wanda encounters them, she probably was under the impression the Hulk was to seriously injure the other Avengers on Klaue's ship (especially when she and Pietro probably had to leave immediately). Her tone when she speaks up upon showing up at Avengers Tower with Steve is one that strikes me as more of, "I know, I caused you guys a lot of trouble," than "I know I caused you to go on a rampage that likely resulted in civilian casualties."
Okey Dokey!

Why are people so certain that the Raft prisoners were denied habeas corpus. I mean, if there was no due process, then how did Scott or Clint manage to get off with just a couple years of house arrest?
There's nothing illegal or unconstitutional about sending people to a holding facility while their trial is pending.