Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the latest ‘She-Hulk’ episode instead. Only… it is not doing so hot either – this week’s episode’s highlight, apparently, was when the titular character, wearing a sparkling pink dress, punched Titania – who was back for round three – in the mouth. Titania was wearing an equally sparkling pink power suit, BTW. So what?
So earlier this week I watched the latest HoD episode –
you know, the one where
Daemon T. kills his wife with little more than a big rock. Killer Croc from the
DC-verse would have been so proud!.. But we are not Killer Croc, and I, for
one, find it kind distasteful that team HBO and co. have needlessly vilified
Daemon T. just for extra drama.
Again, in the book,
Daemon is not a good man, but his wife dies pointedly from natural
causes and he has nothing to do with it, Targaryen family powers
or not. By making Daemon actually do the deed, team HBO and co.
have made him something of a misogynist and have diminished him as a
person and as a character. The fact that HoD’s main protagonist – you know,
the ‘new and improved’ Dany – wants to elope with him does not help anyone
either… but wait!
In this universe, actually being an evil asshole gets you ahead! Daemon
and co. are doing the right thing by their standards! Well, yes,
and don’t forget – the upcoming Dance of the Dragons thingy will be the
start of the end for the Targaryen dynasty; odds are good
that GM was going to revive their reign at the end of ASOIAF, but now that
ASOIAF faded away, and GoT ended up with a Stark on the throne instead… yeah,
this makes it hard to root for anyone on the show and I’m actually
hoping that all of the Targaryens featured on the show so far will die –
but there was one unexpected side-effect: I remembered MCU’s AoS.
…yes, I’ve been
talking about it on and off for ever, but this time the death of Ms. Daemon
reminded me of Fennec Shand from the SW-verse instead. Why?
In SW, Fennec is shot down, left to die, but with Boba’s
help she recovers and becomes his assistant.
In MCU, Kara is shot down – not unlike Fennec – and is
just killed-off by the
show.
Put otherwise, Fennec
is SW’s Kara, and the issue isn’t that that Ming-Na Wen, plays Fennec on
SW, and played both the Cavalry and agent 33 on MCU, (in a manner
of speaking, but still), and it isn’t that Disney properties recycle
each other’s ideas, but how AoS has treated Kara. Agent 33 was an interesting
character, and the showrunners could have pulled a Fennec and kept her alive,
but they did not. Indeed, Kara did not have to be a regular character on
the show at all – they just could have sent her off to her mother, (with
or without her memories intact), or done something similar, (as they did
to the characters of Lance and Bobbi in S5), and that would have been the end. Instead,
they flat-out treated her as crap, and that is the final line.
…Not that HBO is treating its’ powerful women
characters any better – Ms.
Daemon was verbally abused by her asshole husband at first and
then killed-off by him, while the surrogate Dany is coming off as
Daemon’s female counterpart instead. Oh, and one of her (potential) minions
just killed-off her new husband’s same-sex partner. Take that, modern
socio-political values!
…In the ‘She-Hulk’ we do
not go so far, but it is the same
direction still. In the comics – and the cartoons – the character in question was,
and is, one of the Hulk’s most powerful relatives and allies, and Titania is
her adversary and arch-nemesis. On the show, the two appear to be little
more than just two semi-toxic bitches that just cannot get along because that
would be the reasonable and sensible thing, am I right, fellows? Oh, and the ‘Mr.
Immortal’ subplot, cannot forget that – a Marvel character has faked his death
8 times, effectively becoming a bigamist! Ha-ha-ha! ‘Futurama’ actually
did that plotline first, save that its’
bigamist did not fake his death, he just shapeshifted and packed-on more wives.
Have to admire his stamina, if nothing else – but he still were taken down by
all of his wives, just less legally and more violently than Mr. Immortal
has been.
…There is also MCU’s
Abomination, who was last seen on the show having a cult with multiple
girlfriends – and he got set free. Aside from the moral issues, there’s the
fact that he got diminished from being a monstrous reflection of the Hulk into
a mere jerk too – but that is what ‘She-Hulk’ the show does, apparently –
it diminishes all the Marvel characters that it touches, no wonder the original
Hulk fled to Sakaar in the episode 1x02 before it was too late – or maybe
it was, we’ll just have to wait and see.
...That said, my
original point is this is what the American nation have come down to, after ‘MeToo’
and all of that? Between HoD’s handling of Ms. Daemon on one hand, and ‘She-Hulk’
making its’ titular character a mockery of the ‘powerful female
character’ concept, I am really sore at real life. Did I mention that it
sucks?
…Well, this is it for
now, people – I will see you all soon.
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