The Defenders

Kid Danny having his life destroyed was retroactive justice.

I just want you to be happy, Rob.

Thanks.

Man, Iron Fist too has an uphill battle huh?

The concept alone put it in kind of a ditch and then the writing did no favors so.

Uphill seems right.

And then the main actor pissed off fans too.

Sure, he was in a rough situation himself, and was probably happy to get the role at all, but he still botched things.

To be clear, I meant what would season 2 of Defenders be.

Oh.

They all gang up on Danny?

Right. Sorry. Had to get that off my chest.

...ok, I was going to suggest something, but I have to admit, I really don't know what season 2 could be about.

The Hand is beaten. IGH is done with in Jessica's own story, and unless the people behind Luke's own powers rear their ugly heads, or Rand goes evil again, I can't think of who they could fight.

Preferably someone who is not shite (fuck the Hand, seriously). Possibly also someone they can bring Frank Castle in to fight because I really wanna see Frank Castle play off of the rest of them. I've seen Mr. Negative brought up a lot.

It is emotionally abusive though. Matt is too unhealthy to keep a stable relationship with Karen and he's a bad boyfriend to her.

As I said, it's not emotionally abusive. You're just making up excuses to justify your dislike for Matt and Karen as a couple. When you could've just said, "I don't like Matt and Karen as a couple" and boom, ended things there. Like with the "viewing Danny / Colleen as predatory", you're looking at this with blinders on.

To be clear, I meant what would season 2 of Defenders be.

Certainly not the Hand, given that pretty much every show save Iron Fist is going back to their street level roots. I do imagine Hand elements will be in Iron Fist season 2. I do reason that Gao probably made it out of Midland Circle given the whole "no body no death" rule. Maybe there'll be some kind of alliance between Gao and Elektra (if Elektra also survived). And there's certainly a lot that could be done with Gao. (I mean, the one thing that's stayed consistent about Madame Gao is her personality as a manipulator. Her double-crossing and manipulations with Fisk are also present in her interactions with Danny and with the other Fingers.)

In fact, like I said earlier, Fisk would actually a pretty good threat to justify a Defenders team-up. Maybe some sort of villain alliance of sorts that involves Fisk, Mariah and a couple other baddies. Something that it makes it personal for everyone.

Fine then. I don't think Matt and Karen make a good couple because Matt is too emotionally unstable and his actions towards Karen are negligent, abusive, and harmful. That's not blinders, that is literally what he does. I'm not even saying Matt is malicious in doing it, he's just got a hell of a lot of issues that a therapist could become a millionaire off of, and as such he's in no position to have any sort of relationship right now because he needs to sort himself out.

It's abusive. That doesn't mean I hate Matt. It means he needs to sort his shit out.

"The Hand is dead. Long live the... well the Finger sounds dumb. So does the Thumb. Lets says the Nail? Well, I'll workshop it."

Doctor Doom.

Because why not?

I think people would complain about Doom not being given the movie treatment but really Doom needs more room than two hours to stretch his legs out and get his scheming on.

@Adric De Psycho:

It's important to realize that abandonment and abuse early in life seriously alters a person’s approach to human connection and interaction. Concepts like ‘trust’ and ‘love’ border on foreign or mythical; something the child has heard about or read about in stories, but, with little experience, have little sense as to how to put these ideals into practice. Generally, children of abuse and neglect learn coping mechanisms that allow them to fake healthy human interaction and frequently form meaningful connections. That means their expectations for what will happen at any sign of conflict are not in line with what actually occurs in healthy relationships. Survivors of childhood abuse and abandonment expect drastic measures when they make mistakes or conflict arises, particularly, they expect to be abandoned. Because of the nature of the training from Stick, Matt struggles to form stable relationships and reacts ‘incorrectly’ or unreasonably when under emotional strain. It's much the same with Elektra and Danny, who had similar training to what Matt received. It doesn't excuse their behavior but there are underlying reasons for it.

I genuinely do not understand where you're going with this. None of that excuses Matt from how he's treated Karen and none of that excuses Danny from how much of a shithead he is. Like seriously, yeah, people who have been abused have it impact their lives and they can act like shitheads, that doesn't mean they're fully justified in being shitheads. Matt's not a horrible person but he's fucked up a lot and has done bad things. Danny is an out and out horrible person. Their bad pasts don't excuse their actions. They explain (partially, don't really see how some of his past explains Danny being a shithead) but they don't absolve.

x3 You ever see Doom in the 80’s Spider-Man cartoon? He was ostensibly bought in because the sponsor wanted a Darth Vader style character and Marvel went “Just Use Doom”, but he’s portrayed as playing a VERY long game with the full resources of his nation to bear. I pictured that as his lead-in, intelligent, cunning, and playing a long game against the heroes to show the world the glory of DOOM!

It would have to be better than Fantastic Four (2015).

Both Fisk and Kilgrave have freudian excuses as to why they are the way they are. Doesn't make their actions any less awful.

This really just sounds like Protagonist-Centered Morality. "This person's terrible behavior isn't terrible and is actually totally forgivable because, as our main character, we sympathize with them and understand why they acted that way."

Every shitty person has an underlying reason for their shittiness, a backstory for how they became shitty, mitigating factors for why they behaved in such a shitty fashion, sympathetic traits to counteract the occasional shittiness, etc. But they're still shitty people. With protagonists, we get to hear their side of the story rather than just seeing the shittiness like we do with antagonists. However, only a poor writer tries to use that as a blanket justification for protagonist shittiness.

Danny's actions are not excusable. The only reason they get excused is because it's his story.

edited 16th Mar '18 12:50:17 PM by TobiasDrake

I have rallied against the Matt/Karen multiple times. I have pointed out the lack of chemistry between them, how unhealthy the relationship is and how little they have in common. I have also explained multiple times how much of an egoist Matt is in my eyes. But I sure as hell wouldn't ever describe his behaviour as abusive, and I dislike it if the word is just thrown around nilly willy.

What Stick did to Matt and Elektra was abusive. What the monks did to Danny was abusive. What Trish's mother did was abusive. What Killgrave did to Jessica and his other victims was rape and abuse. But what Matt does to Foggy and Karen isn't abuse, it is just being an inconsiderate jerk. And what Danny does to Colleen isn't abuse or even harassment either, this is just being socially awkward. And that has nothing to do with them being protagonists, but the way their actions are contextualized and how they react when other characters push back at them. Matt doesn't try to stop Foggy or Karen from leaving. Danny doesn't demand anything from Colleen or lords being her landlord over her at any point, not even when he realized that she betrayed him.

Apparently stalking and invading a woman's personal space is just being socially awkward then.

No seriously, that entire defense is bullshit. There's being socially awkward and there's being whatever the fuck Danny is. And really, I've seen the "he's just socially awkward" defense used for numerous real abusers so I really do not buy it as a valid means of defending Danny at all. He's not socially awkward. He's just an asshole.

I think we really need to get off this topic.

Until they fix him, we're not getting anywhere.

I don't know if castration is necessarily the answer but I'm not prepared to rule it out.

Interesting how you pounce on that one aspect of the argument but not on the other one. There is a line Danny never crosses, and it is quite an important one. If Danny had ever tried to control any aspect of Colleen's live than yes, the excuse wouldn't work, but that is not what Danny does, he basically barges in with a clumsy gesture and then reacts to what Colleen does instead of expecting her to swoon into his arms.

I could do without any attempts at making this personal, please.

Not my intention. But I can hardly respond to your argument without pointing this out.

I am curious....where do you think is the line to abusive? It seems to be a very low barrier for you.

When the person breaks any line of consent and keeps crossing barriers without letting the opposite party have any say in things, it's abusive, intrusive, and harassment. Danny repeatedly breaks that to the point where what he should've done was avoid contact with Colleen, but the show goes hand over foot to make it good. If somebody A: stalked me, B: intruded in my place of work, C: took over it and berated my students forcefully while I wasn't around (and then continued to do so when I get back while staring at me right in the eye), and D: proceeded to buy the establishment and expect me to be thankful that he's now my landlord, I'd be calling the authorities to have him forcibly dragged away from me and place a restraining order on him. That it turns into a relationship right after is just gross.

As for Matt, I'm softer on him because frankly the guy has a lot of issues that he needs to work through, but yes, his relationship with Karen is abusive and toxic. But, some people in toxic relationships don't intend to hurt them. I speak from having been around some people who I've had to cut out due to them being toxic to be around and not getting the help they need, Matt is someone who has a lot of issues that he refuses to seek help for and who seriously needs a therapist or something. Him dating Karen is unhealthy for either of them but especially for Karen. Going out to beat the shit out of ninjas while having sexy fun time with Elektra is not something that Karen deserves to have to go through behind her back, and Matt is kind of at fault for putting her through this shit. In the end, Matt just really needs to get himself some help because he's not in a stable position in his life or in his current state of mind and any relationship he can have with Karen or really anyone right now is going to be screwed over by his own personal problems.