Discussion DesignatedHero / LiveActionTV

It really doesn't. Its very clearly a case of Ron the Death Eater. Removing it now, if anyone disagrees they may feel free to re-add it, provided its written better.

It got re-added by the same tropper who put it up last time. Since I found out I'm not the only one to remove it I figured its best we take it to discussion and decide if it should be here.

Here's the entry for all to see:

• "If one uses Alternate Character Interpretation, the agents on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. can seen like this, still working for a possibly corrupt organization while teaming up with shady characters like Rosalind Price of the ATCU whenever it suits them. They also have tendency to go to extremes for their revenge, yet put themselves on the moral high ground. They constantly preach about redemption, yet only offer it when either it benefits them in someway or towards someone whose actions never affected them personally, no matter how bad. Finally, they only stopped seeing the Inhumans as a threat due to the latter's connection to Daisy/Skye. They are only really justified in their treatment of Ward, which even then borders on the extreme (they really hate traitors), and even violates some of his human and civil rights. Yet, they have no lingering problems with Bobbi and Mack, who worked with others behind their backs, hijacked SHIELD from them, having them arrested in the process, and sent Coulson on the run for several weeks. Nor do they have a problem with Simmons's sudden xenophobic attitude towards powered people, or Skye somehow believing that they would randomly attack the Inhumans during a peace meeting to the point where she not only turned on them, but also brutally assaulted two agents, including May.
  • Not to mention SHIELD's treatment of Kara, which is probably the most egregious example: a loyal SHIELD agent who was sold off to be tortured and brainwashed by HYDRA, and which is understandable given that it was for the lives of 20 other agents. The problem comes afterwards; they encounter Kara at least twice, both times knocking her out and leaving her behind on the floor to be recaptured by HYDRA, the second of which involved May facially mutilating Kara, yet SHIELD makes jokes about the Kara's predicament and even have Koenig refer to May electrocuting Kara to the face as "awesome". Then, when Skye is kidnapped, it's revealed that Coulson had the resources to rescue Kara all along, yet is only using them now, with much less reinforcement, for Skye's sake. Then, once Kara is left at the SHIELD base, May says that Bobbi shouldn't feel any remorse or sympathy for Kara given that she was working for HYDRA and then May's main reason of disdain for her said to be because Kara wore a mask copying her face, despite it being common knowledge that Kara was brainwashed by HYDRA because SHIELD gave her to them, and is stuck with a mask that has May's face because of the former incident where May electrocuted the mask to her face in the first place. And yet, Skye still says "SHIELD never leaves a man behind", despite that being exactly what they did to Kara, and she and SHIELD are portrayed as correct."

Going to stick my issues in bullet points for ease of reading.

• Firstly, its a mess to read; its a huge wall of text that rambles over different small points without any structure. If it is going to be up, it would need to be seriously repaired, and I feel that it really shouldn't stand without doing so.
• Secondly, the point about 'still possibly corrupt' is false; the SHIELD that exists Season 2 onward is essentially a new organisation with each member handpicked by Coulson who's shown to specifically pick people he knew to be upstanding agents who opposed HYDRA.
• Thirdly, Rosalind Price proves to be on-the-up-and-up so that's not an issue, and the ATCU is a government sanctioned organisation they only work with because the alternative was to let them take Daisy (and while one can maybe argue that's Protagonist-Centred Morality, its shown to be something no character is OK with and they initially use this as a means to investigate the ATCU for corruption, not because 'it suits them), leaving them with little choice. That would be like calling someone a villain because they're blackmailed into working for the CIA.
• Fourthly, they don't 'constantly preach about redemption'. They've barely ever talked about redemption at all. The only people who've ever been offered a second chance were Daisy/Skye when she was a hacker, Deathlok when he was first introduced, Ward when Coulson needed his help (which he, you know, rejected, twice), Kara (which she also rejected), and Cal (which he accepted). Most of these people did in fact directly harm the group-Skye betrayed their trust, Mike attacked them, Ward betrayed them and Kara assaulted May (and both later tortured Bobbi), and Cal repeatedly attacked Coulson and nearly killed Trip. Each one still got offered the second chance.
• Fifthly, actually the only ones who actively treated Inhumans as a direct threat were Mack (because of his distrust of the Kree), Simmons (because Terrigenesis killed Trip), and Gonzales (who none of the team liked, save for Mack and Bobbi), all of whom were still weary of Daisy and her powers until they got over it.
• Sixthly, that's just mindless Stand With Ward nonsense, but if it must be argued against, they didn't violate any right of his beyond holding him captive without any legal authority, and only ever delivered any violence to him that was completely mild compared to what he did to any of them or would do later.
  • On top of that, they forgave Bobbi and Mack because Bobbi and Mack were working with Gonzales' SHIELD, which were, in spite of their issues, ultimately good guys, and as Coulson himself admitted had a point in his lack of oversight. Ward though was not only a HYDRA member who knowingly assisted in Mike Peterson's torture, kidnapping, enslavement, and transformation into Deathlok, but even when they offered him a chance to help them he responded by dumping Fitz and Simmons into the ocean.
• They forgave Daisy for reacting badly to a misunderstanding makes them badguys how...? Forgiving someone isn't a bad thing, dude.

Onto the Kara stuff:

• The first time they knocked Kara unconscious they had no idea who she was, only that she had kidnapped May, left her to be tortured in her underwear, and stole her identity (and it was *this time* May scarred her face, which was in *self-defence*). The second time they tried to talk her down-now knowing who she was-but couldn't really bring her with them as they were in a rush to get Raina out of HYDRA's hands.
• Koenig making a joke doesn't make everyone else not heroic. It makes him an asshole, which they show doesn't really try to present otherwise; the Koenig brothers weren't exactly meant to be likeable people.
• When she's on the SHIELD base, May's comments aren't meant to be correct or nice; she's clearly not in the right given that, for the episode, Bobbi's guilt and sympathy for her treatment is treated positively (and it should be known that May didn't know at the time that it was Bobbi/SHIELD's fault HYDRA captured her). May's dislike for Kara is meant to be at least slightly unfair and unreasonable.
• Finally, and the final issue with all this: SHIELD aren't meant to be completely white goodguys. The fact they're unlawed, unauthorised vigilante spies should make that one obvious, The show repeatedly has characters call one-another out for when they get personal, unprofessional, or otherwise act in a non-justified way, with Coulson's vendetta against Ward in particular being deliberately a case of Coulson crossing a line that the show does not try to act like it wasn't a bad thing.

A Designated Hero needs to be a character the show itself treats as unquestionably heroic, which the show does not, given the times they call each other out on things (take for example how they repeatedly call Coulson out for working with the ATCU in-spite of the fact he had no choice in the matter, or question his leadership). Good is Not Nice or Grey-and-Black Morality are much better fitting tropes, all things considered.

All this entry reads as is a single (or extremely minor) crackpot view of the show, not an opinion that's notable enough to report on. Alternative Character Interpretation isn't good enough, and no where on the page does it outright say that it is acceptable (the only reference it even makes to is how some may disagree on what's moral), while said entry goes beyond ACI into straight up misrepresenting the work/characters and stating false information (hell, a number of the examples listed I'm not entirely sure even happened, but its been long enough since I watched it that I'm just going to assume they might have).

In any case, the initial point I think is suffice enough anyway to discourage posting it: The entry is a long mess of points that are hard to read. If anyone insists on keeping it, then I insist that they clear it up into a readable manner, and as its them who insists on posting it I believe it should be their duty to do that.

Replying to the above topics. And also stating that like the above troper, it's been a while since I've seen the show.

• I agree, it is a huge mess to read, so reducing it can be something done.

• Second, um, SHIELD did cut a deal with Christian to have Ward executed in an manipulated trial, worked with the ATCU, and were in favor of registering the Inhumans before they found out about Skye's connection to them, with that playing a *huge* role in why they decided not to register them.

• They only investigated the ATCU for corruption when and because they weren't okay with letting them take Daisy rather than any actual legitimate reason, and being portrayed as being in the right is a case of flawed morality.

• Um, yes it did. The whole first season was about Coulson saying "Sometimes it's not a bad seed, just a bad influence/Nobody's nobody/You can save someone from themselves if you get to them early enough/Whether it's one man or all of mankind, SHIELD believes everyone is worth saving". Like you said, many did try some harm to the group, but in the cases where redemption was rarely offered, it was only towards people whose actions actually brought lasting physical harm to SHIELD, even if others are guilty of much worse towards other parties.
  • Ex: Skye, was a hacker, didn't actually cause any damage aside from lying; Deathlok, again, attacked them, but didn't cause any damage to SHIELD at the time; and Cal, who, among other things, killed an entire village in a single night and then spent the next 25 years butchering people just because he was angry, "is called a victim of manipulation", and is portrayed in a positive light when asked about his victims by Jaiying because, as Cal stated, he "Never killed a SHIELD agent, only people", and is offered aid at least twice by Coulson, such as when "saving" him from Whitehall and the second time at in the S2 finale. Ward, on the other hand, who is about just as much, if not more of a victim of manipulation than Cal, and who killed only about 15 people at the end of the first season and 25-30 people at max by the end of season 2, is offered redemption only once (if the first time you're talking about is during Ward's stay at the Guest House, Coulson kept Ward there with the intention of murdering him all along, he stated so himself, "The only reason we kept you alive is because you were of use", meaning that once Ward stopped being of use, Coulson was going to murder Ward), and the second time, Coulson only offered Ward a second chance because he needed Ward's help to save Skye, and even then Coulson still gives Ward more grief for murdering 15-20 people than he gives Cal, who murdered at least hundreds, because those 15-20 were SHIELD agents, some of whom Coulson personally cared about, compared to Cal's faceless victims. As for Kara, I don't really recall Coulson ever offering her any sort of redemption, and Kara assaulting May, if I'm not mistaken, only happened while she under brainwashing. Kara's worst crime is torturing Bobbi alongside Ward, which even then, had a sympathetic (even in unjustified in her actions) reason for it.

• No, the only one in the team who wasn't hesitant of the Inhumans at first at all, including Skye, was Fitz, everyone else did want to register the Inhumans, including Coulson and May. It was only later decided, with Skye as a big influence on many of the team members, such as Coulson, to not treating them as a threat.

• Not really. Coulson kept Ward imprisoned with the intention of murdering him the whole time, Fitz suffocated Ward, which yes, is a form of torture, just as much as waterboarding and suffocating someone with a plastic bag is, and Coulson sold off Ward to Christian to a manipulated trial (which is a violation of someone's civil right-the right to a fair trial), and what SHIELD did to Ward paling in comparison to his worst crime later on, which is torturing Bobbi, well, that really no worse of different than what Cal did to a bunch of random people over the years. And last, I know the show kinda looks down upon this view of "Coulson sold Ward off to his abuser" as shown in "Dirty Half-Dozen", but I really dispute that mentality.
  • Let me give a different example by putting different characters of an abuser-victim relationship that we, the audience, empathize with differently, in the same position as Ward and Christian that I really doubt people would've been ok with SHIELD's actions-Jessica and Kilgrave. Let's suppose, if Jessica, after what Kilgrave did to her, became an anti-villain rather than a hero. Jessica is put in Ward's position, someone she loves, let's say Luke Cage, is dying, SHIELD are the only ones who have a cure but refuse to share it, and so Jessica reluctantly kills a few SHIELD agents to get the cure and save Luke. She is imprisoned afterwards, and while there, Coulson meets Kilgrave, and Kilgrave says that, if Coulson gives Jessica to him, Kilgrave will use his powers of voice manipulation to help SHIELD, to which Coulson agrees, and the story portrays this as okay and something Jessica totally deserves. Later on, when Jessica is on the Bus saying mistakes were made, such as "Coulson sold me off to my rapist." I'm pretty sure that if the counter-argument was "After you killed how many people?", no one would've been okay with the logic that that somehow justifies sending someone back to their rapist.
  • As for the Bobbi and Mack, I do agree that they have a point and that their crimes are less severe, and different in nature from Ward's crimes, so I have no problem removing that. That being said, when Ward dumped Fitz Simmons into the ocean, the pod was supposed to float, as Fitz himself stated, saying that it only didn't because of a malfunction, which I find extremely convenient is not pointed out in later conversations. Which is not to say I don't believe Ward isn't responsible for Fitz's brain-damage, IMO he is since his actions did result in Fitz's injury, but when Bobbi is put in the same position as to how her actions affected Kara, the show treats it like Bobbi is completely not at fault, which I do believe is something of a double-standard of the show towards SHIELD.

• I actually completely agree about the Skye part, and am more than okay with removing that part.

Kara Stuff:

• No one is saying May was wrong to defend herself. The problem comes from the fact that there were multiple times when SHIELD could've helped Kara, but didn't, especially when it's revealed that the cube Coulson possessed since the beginning of S2 could have tracked Kara down all along, yet he only decided to track her down when he needed her and Ward's help to save Skye, not to save Kara. That's what's being argued.

• Um, it kinda does that given that Koenig is an active agent of SHIELD, and that the protagonists seem to have no problem with it or call him out on it, nor the show portray Koenig in a negative light due to the fact that he is joking about a very serious predicament like that. And again, as the Designated Hero page stated, the Designated Hero is a "Jerkass at best, a villain at worst". And I'm pretty sure the show does try to present the Koenig brothers as likable people.

• Actually, May's comments are meant to be seen as correct and right, just as much or even more so than Bobbi's. Bobbi is portrayed in a positive light due to feeling guilty over what happened to Kara, but it is ultimately May who is meant to be seen as in the right. And yes, while May may not have known about Bobbi's role in Kara being captured by HYDRA (which is never clarified), May did know that Kara's action's with HYDRA were the result of brainwashing and not something Kara did out of her own freewill, and still holds a grudge that is portrayed as justified.

• I agree that that there are many points where the protagonists call each other out on things, but there are just as many cases where there protagonists don't call each other out on their crimes or their flaws and double-standards are portrayed as virtues, such as the ones listed above, or, again, the case of their morals not matching their actual actions, such as Skye's and Coulson's "SHIELD never leaves a man behind", despite that being exactly what they did to Garrett and Kara.

The show does treat SHIELD as ultimately being unquestionably heroic, such as the question of his leadership. Yes Coulson's leadership is questioned, but rarely do those questioning ever stick, and a good most of the time, Coulson is treated as being right about his leadership in the end or all along, with the people who questioned him being portrayed as either being grey characters or in the wrong to have ever doubted him.

That being said, the above proper has raised some fairly legit points about the entry that I'm willing to change.

Edited by NEX7

• On the Christian point, they never said that the trial would be manipulated, nor that he would be executed for his crimes. They surrendered Ward to a legitimately elected senator's custody on behalf of the US government so he could stand trial for his *many* crimes. The only really morally questionable thing was the fact they had Ward in their custody in the first place, given their lack of legal authorisation.
• Um, no, that's not what happened with the ATCU. Yes they only began actively working with them to protect Daisy, but its not like it was a case of they were OK with the ATCU running around doing whatever they like; remember the first episode of the season, where they've been investigating Rosalind Price and been trying to figure out who the ATCU were? They were already investigating them, and only stepped off and began negotiating when they found out the ATCU were a government group.
• You're taking a lot of those lines as far more literal than intended. The point of most of those wasn't that people all no matter what deserve forgiveness for their crimes and a chance at redemption, so much that not all situations are black and white and no one is completely evil. Again, its been a while since I watched Season 1 so I forgot about most of that stuff, but to be honest, looking back, that adds more credence to the 'they're not hypocritical' point given they do try to save and talk down anyone who's an anti-villain (Miles, Akela, Scorch, Blizzard, Hall, and most of the Villain of the Week characters were initially negotiated with or had the team try to take them down), and the ones they succeed in talking down aren't just patted on the back and released, they, you know, send them to actually stand trial for their crimes, like they're kind-of supposed to do.
  • Again, Daisy/Skye's crime *was* serious, as she compromised their security and aided a criminal who violated SHIELD's databases and ultimately endangered the team since it allowed HYDRA to perfect the Centipede formula. Deathlok, meanwhile, kidnapped Skye twice (and assisted in Coulson's capture), and on multiple occasions tried to kill them, while Cal repeatedly tried to kill Coulson and aided a number of SHIELD's enemies (and really, this has been argued about before, but he did *not* get treated with just forgiveness; again, Daisy was clearly the only one who completely sympathised with him, while everyone else who interacted with him were deeply disturbed by him). None of them, however, got off with just a warning-Skye was essentially technology-arrest, Deathlok left control measures in SHIELD's hands, and Cal had his *identity and memory removed* (which, you know, is kind of a really bad punishment, even if it was a mercy). The show never treated redemption as just something everyone can get for free and that just being sorry makes things OK, no matter your reasons behind such.
  • To say Ward was manipulated more than Cal is a joke, given by your own admission Cal spent *25 years* acting under Jaiyang's influence, while Ward, at best, spent about 5-10. You're also taking one line completely out of context ('you're only alive because we need you' does not mean 'we're going to kill you', it means 'we kept you alive when we could've left you to die', which we know they did since they stopped him from killing himself), and also forgetting that for the second half of the first season Fitz kept trying to argue he should be given a second chance and tries to offer him such when he was about to dump them into the water.
• Registering the Inhumans =/= treat them as a threat. They already had the Gifted register, which is really the same thing but with a different and less defined group. While one could maybe compare it to the MRA in X-Men comics or the SHRA, this is very much a situation where its a matter of perspective as to which is the right call or not, but the fact that said register would be for Coulson's team only-who would *not* use it as a means to execute Inhumans so much as monitor them, for both their own and other people's protection. It should be noted that they actually seem to have registered them, given they're shown giving every Nuhuman they come across screening and training to control their powers.
• Again, that's not what Coulson was doing, Fitz *did* torture him but it was only after Ward, you know, left him brain-damaged (see bellow on that), and again, nothing said the trial wouldn't be fair. To argue that their treatment paled in what he did to Bobbi is ridiculous, as Fitz was the only one to ever be shown causing him physical harm and he was *not* given permission to do it, and Coulson did not approve (even if he did understand why), while what Ward did to Bobbi was a serious and physically debilitating assault (as well as what he'd done previously to Fitz, Simmons, as well as the manipulations he put the team under and the many people he killed, or his later crimes of killing Price and kidnapping and torturing Fitz and Simmons, all of which massively outway holding him against his will without legal authority). Hell, one could probably argue that they protected him, given the fact that, as a member of a terrorist organisation, he would likely have been sent to a black site or Guantamino Bay where he *would* be tortured, and probably executed without trial.
  • The Jessica comparison doesn't work because, lets remember, as far as Coulson believed, Ward *lied*. Ward had lied about everything else in his life and Christian, who again is a democratically elected senator, claims otherwise, while all evidence they've uncovered indicates he's lying. Coulson had no reason to believe that Ward really was abused (while the show itself leaves it ambiguous until later, where Thomas reveals that, while their family was abusive, *so was Grant*), so handing him to Christian (for, again, a trail that nothing indicated wouldn't be fair) is not comparable to handing Jessica over to a man who sexually and mentally abused her without any ambiguity to it, who has no legal right to do anything to her. (Lets also remember that saying he 'handed him to Christian' isn't technically correct; he handed him to the US Military's custody, who you know, are a sanctioned authority)
  • The excuse that 'dropping them gave them a chance since it was supposed to float' is at best rationalizing, at worst deliberately ignoring the fact. Even if it did float, Fitz and Simmons would have been without supplies in the middle of the ocean and the only way they were able to get out alive was a borderline Dues Ex Machina. It was still a blatant attempted murder that does not compare to Bobbi giving up the safehouse Kara was in, given Bobbi didn't know Kara *was* in said safehouse and the alternative was to put far more agents in danger, while Ward's actions were an attempted murder against the one person still trying to give him a chance for no reason beyond he was ordered to.

Kara points:

• Except SHIELD also have a limited amount of resources a whole lot of shit on their plate, from finding the city to combating HYDRA to many other things that really left them with almost no free agents. Given the fact that, for most of the time, Kara was in HYDRA's custody standing besides one of its biggest leaders, trying to rescue her would have been a very difficult task that they just did not have the resources to do so while also trying to prevent HYDRA unlocking the Kree city.
• The Koenig thing is comparable to Tony making a joke about rape in Avengers Age of Ultron; characters making inappropriate comments that people don't call out isn't necessarily a case of everyone is an asshole, just that one character has a shitty sense of humor and no one was bothered enough to call them out (for reference, I work in an office where many people regularly make misogynistic jokes; I personally identify as a feminist, but I don't call them out on these jokes because its not worth the effort to do such). The Koenigs *are* meant to be assholes; everyone finding their obsession with lanyards annoying and the way the characters express discomfort around them kind of shows that. They're also super-minor characters who no one is particularly close to, so things they do don't really reflect the core cast. This is like saying have a shitty friend makes you a shitty person.
• How, exactly, is May presented as correct or justified? The show doesn't do anything to indicate she's right to be this way, in fact you even point out other characters brought up the idea that she was brainwashed as a counterpoint, so the show does try to poke holes in her unreasonable dislike of her. What way exactly does the show, at that moment, present May as right, especially as you yourself say that Bobbi's sense of guilt is also presented as right even though they're completely opposing views.

Again, ultimately the show *doesn't* present them as 'unquestionably heroic', since again, they *do* call them out on things. The fact that they actively question many of their decisions completely shoots that claim out the water.

I do contend that Coulson's leadership is flawed and the show does at least at first present anyone who disagrees negatively, so you could maybe make something of that. However, Coulson himself *does* end up agreeing with their points, which is why he forms a council to oversee his decisions (even if that disappears in the third season since most of them died/stepped down), which implies that he wasn't intended to be seen as completely right. On top of that, the vast majority of the argument here seems to be that SHIELD were unfair to Ward and Kara. I don't think SHIELD were perfect in their handling of Kara but the show doesn't treat them as such either, while Ward gives them no reason to be fair with him given the amount of abuse he puts them all through.

In any case, this stuff I believe does not fit the criteria for Designated Hero; Designated Hero isn't just 'character is morally grey/kind of an asshole', so much as 'character is treated as a better hero than they are'. SHIELD are treated as a morally grey organisation and the characters are flawed, but ultimately heroic and with good intentions. Their actions pale in comparison to what other examples of Designated Hero, and this interpretation is such an extreme case of Alternative Character Interpretation that it does not belong here. This does feel like an attempt to justify the Stand With Ward mentality by arguing that SHIELD are just as bad, which, with all due respect, is a very insane example of Draco in Leather Pants. Even YMMV tropes aren't meant to be about every crazy theory, and they most certainly should not try to portray said theories as correct or state them as facts, as the entry did.

• Coulson said so himself when talking with Ward, when Ward says that Christian will probably have him executed for his crimes just in time for the elections, and Coulson agrees, saying that it was Christian's idea.
• Still classifies as an instance of claiming moral high-ground, like you said before, in which SHIELD are unauthorized vigilante spies, working with the ATCU as a means to investigate it for corruption, a case of Protagonist-Centered Morality.
• I disagree. Redemption and the good in people which Coulson always talks about were a big theme in S1, especially in concern towards his character. And again, facing a fair trial for your crimes is the right thing to do. But there are problems with your examples:
  • Akela Amador, for example was taken into SHIELD custody, who at the time were a legitimate agency with authority to do this, and she would receive a fair trial were Coulson, who was extremely sympathetic to her given that she was his former trainee (and thus someone the protagonist really cared about) would be allowed to testify in her defense. Miles (who Coulson isn't sympathetic at all to), however, is a case of Strawman Has a Point, given that his criticisms of SHIELD are proven later on to be correct, but no one ever brings him up when his criticisms are validated, and given that his actions indirectly got a SHIELD agent (who Coulson is sympathetic to) killed, Coulson up and dumps him in the middle of China with absolutely no way to get home, rather than give him a fair trail. If anything, this just proves my point of hypocrisy.
  • You seem to have misunderstood what I'm saying. I'm not saying that Skye's, Deathlok's, or Cal's crimes weren't aimed at SHIELD. I mean that it didn't bring any lasting physical harm as in it didn't get any agents harmed or killed like with Ward or Miles, even if they were far less responsible (Miles to Skye and Deathlok) or are guilty of harming less people (Ward to Cal) but are treated much more negatively just because the exact people that were harmed were SHIELD agents that Coulson and the protagonists knew and cared about rather than random civilians and people who the narrative couldn't care less about because we don't see or know them; like Cal's statement is treated by the narrative of "Never SHIELD agents, only people". The story treats this as a positive factor, that the fact that Cal's victims were random civilians instead of SHIELD agents is a good thing.
  • No, it isn't. Ward was taken/kidnapped by Garrett when he was 15 years old and manipulated for 15 years, 5 of which he was kept isolated in a forest with no human contact save for Garrett, whereas Cal was already a man in his mid to late 20s/early to mid 30s when Jaiying started manipulating, despite only having average contact with her. To say that Cal was more of a victim because it was longer is like saying that a 10 year old kid was kidnapped and locked in a basement for 5 years with no human contact save for his kidnapper is less of a victim than an 35 year old adult who was manipulated for 10 years by his on-again-off-again girlfriend who he saw from time to time simply because it lasted longer. And no, I'm not taking the line out of context, if Coulson only kept Ward alive out of use, that means that the moment Ward was no longer of use in combating HYDRA was the moment they were going to murder him.

• Okay, so let's agree that SHIELD had no legal authority to hold Ward because they were no longer a legitimate agency and instead a bunch of unauthorized vigilante spies. They by the same logic they shouldn't be able to register the Inhumans against their will since it's a case of a violation of civil rights. In fact, it's kinda similar to the Civil War issue in the comics.

• Saying that Fitz was justified in torturing Ward over him leaving him brain-damaged is like saying that then Kara is justified in torturing Bobbi because HYDRA captured her because of Bobbi. It may have been understandable and sympathetic, but not justified. I already made my point about the manipulated trial (see above). As for the paling comparison, you misread/misunderstood what I wrote. I was agreeing with you, Ward's later crimes are much worse than what SHIELD did to him. I'm saying that Ward's worst crime, torturing Bobbi, is the same thing that Cal himself was doing in the series over a course of 25 years. Yet only when Ward does it it is treated as a Moral Event Horizon by the narrative because it was on a protagonist rather than random faceless people, despite the fact that Ward had far better (even if unjustified) reasons for doing so than Cal. And, again, I already gave my part about Coulson planning to kill Ward once he had nothing more to offer or be of use (see above). Plus, didn't Coulson say at the end of S1 that he was planning on making Ward suffer? So they only kept Ward from killing himself because he was of use and so they could make him suffer. They didn't end up protecting him.
  • Actually, Coulson did believe Ward about Christian. He said so himself in Frenemy of My Enemy-"Maybe your family, Christian, Garrett, they didn't take all the good away from you." If Coulson believed that Christian and his family was an influential in making Ward who he was as a much as Garrett was, then it's because Coulson did believe what Ward said about Christian, he just didn't care. And as for Christian being a democratically elected senator, that's quite obviously because the public didn't know the truth about his past behavior. It's practically guaranteed that if his past behavior did become public knowledge, Christian would be somehow lose office. Again, use Kilgrave as an example. Let's suppose Kilgrave legitimately became a Senator and the public has no knowledge about his crimes, with the exception of SHIELD and Jessica. Jessica tells Coulson while imprisoned for killing SHIELD agents, and Coulson then talks to Kilgrave, who says that he will use his powers and influence in the Congress and powers to help SHIELD in exchange for Jessica, and Coulson agreeing, and the narrative portraying this as ok because Jessica totally deserves this for her crimes. About the Thomas thing, I will admit that is something of a Broken Base given Ward's flashback, with many people seeing it as true and in character and others as a retcon to try take away sympathy from the character to those who still felt it. And again, no, Ward was being transferred into Christian's custody, Skye and Coulson said so ("You're brother wants you in his custody, and we're giving him exactly what he wants"). The US Military was simply in charge of transferring Ward to Christian, and even then, those were soldiers selected by Christian, as he points out when trying to talk to Ward.
  • I have to admit, I hadn't thought about the stranded at sea without supplies.

Kara points:

• Coulson had even less resources when he did track Kara down. When Kara was kidnapped, he had about a bit more than a dozen agents, a base, wasn't on the run, and had the cube, yet he didn't try to rescue Kara. But when Skye was kidnapped, despite being in the middle of a SHIELD civil war, on the run, with only two agents by his side, and no base, Coulson did track Kara down because he needed Ward's help to save Skye.
• I don't recall Iron Man making a rape joke in Age of Ultron. But having making a shitty joke is quite different than making a shitty joke about the suffering of someone they know, especially when they were the one's who caused it. It would be like if Koenig made a joke about Tripp's death or Skye smashing Tripp to bits, and no one calling them out on it, which I doubt would happen.
• I could ask you how Bobbi is presented in a positive light? May is presented as being right in that, despite other's bringing up the brainwashing point, May is the one who get's the final word in that Kara is somehow still guilty, even though she was brainwashed, while Bobbi is presented as being positive in that she feels guilty for what happened to Kara despite it being in "no way" her fault, according to the May and the narrative.

Like I said, the show does present SHIELD as being more heroic than they actually are, such as when May or Coulson or Fury are talking about what SHIELD stands for and what it's agents are all about, such as honesty, loyalty, truth, and all that stuff.

The show while there are instances of Coulson admitting his flaws, and the story kind of presenting him as a negative light, with Coulson himself admitting so of those points, I agree, the story ultimately always ends with Coulson being presented as in the right about everything and others being wrong in the end. As for the Ward and Kara being treated unfairly, the reference itself in the page says that SHIELD is mostly justified in their treatment of Ward, with them crossing the line only a couple of times, and as for Kara, the show, while treating what happened to her as tragic, does treat it as totally not being SHIELD's fault in anyway and in her grudge against them being unjustified and something she needs to get over.

I'm sorry, but the show doesn't really seem to treat SHIELD as morally grey in my opinion. They seem to treat SHIELD and it's agents, with the exception of May, as something just short of the Ideal Hero, and again, flawed but not grey or asshole-lish.

Edited by NEX7

• That doesn't mean that the trial will be fixed. Generally on TV, when talking to suspects being charged for crimes, the interrogating officer will act like the entire thing is guaranteed. Its a TV thing that happens, not an admission from Coulson.
• Um, not really, at least no more than any time Spider-Man sneaks around Oscorp looking for dirt. That's *at best* Protagonist-Centred Morality, but not Designated Hero.
• Season 1 also had as a theme the idea that psychic abilities did not exist or at least hadn't been proven. Early-Installment Weirdness, with a tinge of Character Development (Ward and Garret's betrayal could easily have been seen as an event that destroyed Coulson's ability to forgive).
  • He still released Miles without trying him for a crime he would almost certainly have been harshly punished for (technically speaking, what he did is an act of treason and/or terrorism; that's the kind of stuff he's likely to get executed at a black site for). Coulson's treatment of Miles was harsh, but ultimately a lot nicer than what Miles would have gotten from anyone else.
  • Except it kinda did; at the very least, Deathlok and Cal both definitely killed SHIELD agents. So no, they don't treat their crimes as less because it wasn't SHIELD they hurt; they treated them as less because they had much more understandable motivations.
  • You're simultaneously playing up Ward's trauma and downplaying Cal's. Cal -who prior was a sane, charitable, and generally decent human being- had his wife utterly butchered and his infant daughter kidnapped, had to go through the process of rebuilding his wife, who then proceeded to manipulate him after his use of a Psycho Serum (which he took to be able to fight HYDRA with) destroyed his sanity, and his wife eventually discarded him because he wasn't Inhuman (not to mention, it was about 25 years he was dealing with this, and the bulk of which Jaiyang was in his life, not 'on and off'). Ward, by contrast, was already a delusional sociopath when Garret found him. What Garret did to him was tough, but Ward was already a dangerous and deranged human being, and his experience was a lot less severe even if you take in his age (should note that living by himself for months off of the land isn't that bad, and isn't any worse than what one would expect in many military training regimes, while Ward, as a sociopath, is far less likely to be damaged by such treatment).
  • As for the murder thing, yes you really are misreading that; Coulson never said he was going to kill him, all they said is they kept him around for information, which is just as likely to mean they would have handed him over to Talbot like they did their other prisoners (just like they eventually do). You have to be completely, deliberately, looking at that line in its most negative and unlikely intention to get that interpretation.
• Registration itself isn't a violation of civil rights (especially as its consensual; they asked if they could register them first). Its what you do with that information that's problematic; SHIELD wanted to register them so they knew who could do what and be sure they could control their abilities, and its not really any different than the X-Men keeping record of any mutants they find. The Civil War issue in the comics, by contrast, the problem was that they were imprisoning anyone with superpowers (with loose definitions of what counts as Superpowers) who did not register, regardless of their intent, which *is* a violation of civil liberties.
• Except no. Bobbi traded Kara's safehouse to protect others, Ward dumped Fitz and Simmons because he was ordered to kill them; not comparable. And, again, I never said what Fitz did WAS justified, Coulson reprimands him for it (albeit nicely), and you're overlooking the fact that Fitz himself was still heavily brain damaged to the point of hallucinating (tl;dr, he's not in his right mind when he does that). Trying to argue that Ward had 'better reasons' than Cal for torturing Bobbi is actually a rather frightening thing to say; Cal did what he did because he was looking for his daughter, while Ward did it to try and further corrupt Kara and because he likes hurting people. Ward's reasons for what he did were not in any way understandable or sympathetic; he was hurting Bobbi because he's sadistic and saw Kara as a means to have a partner in that sadism, not because he cared what Bobbi did or who she was. Lets be frank, but what Ward was doing to Kara was comparable to serial killers grooming a partner; there's no way to rationalize that as sympathetic, and trying to do so is actually very concerning.
  • Those are some really throw-away lines you're using to base this on. Firstly, Coulson said that long after he handed him over; given Christian's (forced and possibly false) confession Coulson might have came around, or (and more likely) he was feeding Ward's delusions to make him cooperate; this is something people do when negotiating with delusional individuals. Secondly, you can't compare this to Kilgrave because again, for Kilgrave to make the offer you're suggesting would mean he admitted his powers to Coulson, which would greatly change things (if Coulson knew of those powers and did so anyway, then yes its horrible; Christian did not have any powers and denies his abusive past). The point of this is as far as Coulson is aware of the situation Ward is a lying manipulator and Christian isn't, and while you could argue its a retcon (to be fair, Ward was shown to have issues of delusion since before that retcon; again, his claim that he was 'saving' Fitz by dumping him in the ocean, and his belief that he could earn Skye's love), all evidence at this point points to the idea that Ward was lying. Thirdly, another throw-away line that can be handwaved as hyperbole, as Christian would have no ability to hold a man under his direct custody; the most he could do is influence which jail he ends up in.

Kara points:

• He also had far more on his plate at the time when he had those resources. Coulson, as director, would be charged with overseeing everything-from combating HYDRA to negotiating with Talbot to dealing with the Inhumans to dealing with individual missions he was overseeing to what he was doing with Koenig and the Hellicarrier to his meetings with Andrew to everything and anything else that we don't see ourselves. When he was on the run, he had nothing to do except find Skye. He had the only resource he needed to find Kara (who had apparently stopped moving around, as she was constantly on the run prior or in HYDRA's custody), and had time to focus on it.
• When trying to lift the hammer, Tony comments about re-instituting Prima Nocta, the historic right of kings to insist on sex with other mens' wives on their wedding night. I'd also point out that they didn't know Kara, they merely knew of her (and saying 'its worse if you know the person' is the exact kind of Moral Myopia you're trying to accuse SHIELD of playing). Koenig isn't treated as if he's being funny, no one expresses any amusement by his comment (that I remember, at least), much like Tony only receives silence upon his joke.
• The scene ends with a longing look at Bobbi's sad face before she goes to talk to Kara; tl;dr, she might not have an argument or a verbal response, but that kind of longing look usually means 'this person is the sympathetic/right one'.

They don't actually act like it stands for any of that stuff; as an espionage agency, they couldn't possibly stand for 'honesty' or 'truth' because that's directly against what agents of espionage do. The only thing they regularly claim to stand for is to 'be the shield', protecting innocents and the greater good, which they ultimately do to the best of their ability.

The show ultimately doesn't do what you say though; again, the fact he gets called on things definitely means that Coulson isn't treated as 'right about everything', and the show on multiple occasions goes out of its way to have him apologise-that alone goes against your argument. The show doesn't treat their treatment of Kara as OK nor does it present her anger at them as unjustified; it presents her actions as negative, but that's also a reoccurring message: the crimes of others don't justify your own. Ward's (possibly non-existent) abuse doesn't make his actions OK, Kara's victimization doesn't make her actions OK, Coulson's decisions don't make Mack's actions against him OK, and Ward's crimes don't make Coulson's vendetta against him OK. This is an established message they tie to everyone who acts in such a manner.

None of them are really presented as an Ideal Hero though, at the very least not past the first season. Remember Daisy's rant about SHIELD's flaws and manipulations, while under Hive's control? They outright say this isn't the result of his control but her pent up frustrations coming to light, and the show ''does not disregard or disagree. By your admission they're flawed, which in itself means the show isn't treating them as Ideal Heroes; 'flawed' means its morally grey, and that means that the show isn't supporting them as morally right every time.

And it was added again.

Taking it to ask the tropers. Gets discussion, removed and stated why. Then added on again.