I am thinking of writing a Matt-woos-Foggy fic and I know that at some point there was a prompt to that theme (I think in the thread there was mention of Matt finding Foggy's favorite cookies or something with his supersenses?). Would anyone happen to have it saved?
But what does calling out Wesley or Fisk or Vladimir have to do with excusing anything Karen did? If I remember the line correctly, other people's evil does not make her good. The problem *I* have with Karen is, like Fisk (and Matt!), she was given so many chances to make better choices all the way down the line. Everybody kept telling her to be careful, to think, to take precautions, and did she listen to anybody? No, she didn't. Do you understand WHY she lied and manipulated Ben to go meet Wilson's mother? It didn't have anything to do with her being naive or innocently thinking he'd be ecstatic and forgive her. No, she NEEDED him to be the one to meet the woman because Karen needed BEN to be the one to print the story. She wasn't going to do it, she didn't want her past exposed, and she knew exactly what she was doing when she pushed Ben into doing what he did.
Would he have done it on his own, given the chance? At that point, no, because he had already decided his WIFE was more important than anything else in his life at that point, more important than the city, than Fisk, than any story. What kills me is Karen already knew this because he told her this straight up, and what *she* wanted was more important than what Ben needed, which is a running theme for Karen. TBH, it's her leitmotif, a selfishness that parodies selflessness. She's not a martyr like Matt, she's willing to put the pain and responsibility on others instead of accepting it herself. From a writing standpoint, she's brilliant and this show is full of unreliable narrators (Fisk thinks he's a great guy, Matt thinks he's the worst, and their truths juxtapose through the series), and she blends right in. As soon as Ben started backing out of covering the story, Karen panicked and needed him to do what SHE wanted, and got Ben to do it. Not only that, but the next day when he was still so pissed off at her (not thanking his lucky stars that she showed him The Way, you'll note), he's still trying to back out, and she STILL pushes and pushes him to stay with the story. Even after knowing how much danger she's exposed him to, she still wants what she wants.
Now, I take umbrage with Matt in several places of the series, too, as I was meant to, but earlier in the series Matt was making worse decision and he starts to get smarter as the series wears on. Karen doesn't improve as a character. If she's killed before, she's stagnated and now she's actively hiding it (maybe she's hidden the other kills, too). So weigh Karen's actions of pushing Ben (even after she absolutely knew Wesley knew about Ben and killed Wesley, but doesn't tell Ben to save his life, no) against the closely timed scene where Matt goes to Ben for intel and what does Matt/DD tell Ben? To keep his head down and watch his back, to not expose himself because he doesn't want Ben to get caught, and he reminds him they've backed Fisk into a corner and he's going to lash out. There's a difference here between the actions of the protagonists, do you see what I mean? Karen hasn't gotten to the place where Matt is, where he's thinking smarter and not making foolish decisions, but Matt is also given the chance to wreck himself by killing Fisk and he can't, he doesn't. He almost dies instead. When Karen is given the chance to kill Wesley, she does, no hesitation, and then she hides it. There's another thread here that has to do with faith, where Matt and Karen have had this discussion about which one is religious and which one isn't, and as the series goes on Matt comes closer and closer to his moral north and finally establishes it before ep13, but Karen? No, nobody neeeeeds faith to do the right thing, but at the end of the show any character needs to be responsible for their actions no matter WHY they came to them. As an audience member, I either have to blame the writers for all the bad (and good) Karen does, or I have to lay everything on Karen the character, and let her be responsible for everything. You don't get to break the fourth wall like a buffet table and only credit the writers for the bad shit Karen does when she's obvs capable of doing really good things, too. So I choose to credit/blame Karen for everything, because I love all these characters, even when they screw up.
I love Karen as a character and I feel like the show set her up to be something of a subconscious viper in the pit of Nelson & Murdock on purpose (she's a written character, and they put care into her creation like they did all the characters), but I also don't like a lot of the things Karen has done. Foggy *facepalming* unintentionally called her inhuman for killing people in the same way he called Matt a terrorist. The difference? Matt was framed, but Karen really is a killer. It's painful, yes, but it's a nice touch. See what I mean? She has a lot of great traits to her, and a lot of great *bad* traits to her, and I don't think she's a relatively innocent character. She's likely a victim, yes, but being a victim doesn't mean your bad choices are continually excused. At some point she, like Matt, will have to accept responsibility and make better choices. We just haven't seen it yet, and some people really wanted to get closure on her character before the series ended. But there's always S2. :) Maybe Karen's knee-jerk detractors will come to love her next year.
Well I think losing Foggy and Karen to his "lying" would be enough to make his life absolutely miserable until he can find a way to reverse his curse. Maybe he becomes super reckless as Daredevil after losing Foggy and Karen and runs himself ragged due to emotional issues.
Yeah, that's pretty much what's gonna happen, but how do I avoid him being disbarred and how does the curse break? I pretty much have nothing beyond "this curse causes Matt emotional pain".
I wouldn't worry about that, since the show really didn't. Aside from that one trial thing and also working on Elena's case, Nelson & Murdock didn't actually have much lawyer-related work to do. Their firm isn't really on the successful side yet.
Oh yeah...we only got like one court scene. Okay, but do you have any ideas on how it should be broken? I'm not having Matt jump off a roof or try to commit suicide via criminal or something because absolutely no one believes him when he speaks/writes/thinks anything.
NAYRT: (though I was the anon who said Matt would be miserable enough just losing Foggy and Karen)
I think it'll depend on how he gets the curse. This is just a suggestion: but using magical ninja chi energy to make Matt's life miserable and to make him lose his friends sounds like it's up Stick or one of his associate's alley. So maybe he could confront said kung fu wizard?
Or a way to break the curse would be to make someone BELIEVE that he's telling the truth somehow.
I was thinking of Foggy confronting Daredevil and yanking the mask off and having the curse break because Matt/Daredevil's said something along the lines of "I am Matt Murdock/Daredevil" just seconds earlier and the curse can't compete with physical proof, so it breaks.
But the ninja fight's a good idea! Maybe, I can have him caged somewhere that nullifies the curse for a bit while the rest of his friends hunt down the ninja....?
I guess I'm a little confused. (I don't get "master manipulator" Karen, honestly, so the problem may just be that our baseline interpretations of the characters differ pretty widely?)
No, she NEEDED him to be the one to meet the woman because Karen needed BEN to be the one to print the story. She wasn't going to do it, she didn't want her past exposed, and she knew exactly what she was doing when she pushed Ben into doing what he did.
I could be remembering things wrong, but I believe that Ben Urich is the character who tells Karen that she's an incredibly unreliable witness/source because of her Mysterious Past, and there's no way that anyone will believe a story published by someone like her. (Help, kinkmeme! Did I make that scene up entirely? :P )
Matt is also given the chance to wreck himself by killing Fisk and he can't, he doesn't. He almost dies instead. When Karen is given the chance to kill Wesley, she does, no hesitation, and then she hides it.
...mmm. Agree to disagree here, please. Matt hunts Fisk down, still not entirely sure if he's going to kill him or not, and events conspire to take the decision out of his hands, right?
I mean, the timeline (watch me make an embarrassing mistake here) briefly goes A) Matt considers killing Fisk in revenge, B) Matt seeks out Vanessa Marianna, apparently to convince himself of Fisk's humanity, C) Matt gets counsel from his priest, who suggests that murder is not the answer, and Matt leaves that conversation on an ambiguous note, D) Matt attempts to track Fisk down, and we the audience still don't know what his ultimate plans are, E) Nobu ambushes Matt and starts a fight that nearly kills Matt, F) Fisk shows up, continues to beat the holy shit out of Matt, G) Matt flings himself out the window to escape his own certain death.
I don't think we ever get a definitive "Matt decides that murder is wrong" moment, or a "Matt has a realistic opportunity to kill Fisk and chooses not take it," do we?
Karen's timeline, on the other hand, goes: A) framed for murder, B) attacked and nearly killed in jail, C) attacked and nearly killed in her home, D) drugged, kidnapped, and brought to an abandoned warehouse by E) the man who's responsible for the previous attempts on her life and who immediately makes several very credible death threats against everyone she's ever known, F) Karen shoots her kidnapper to death, G) Karen does not report this act of self defense to the authorities, because she is aware that an unknown number of policemen report directly to Fisk.
I had tons of fun with you guys. Thanks for hanging out! I'll try to be there next week, but this time I can't stay until 2 am. I am sooooo jet-lagged today. :-P
his abilities in the comics are pretty inconsistent
THIS. A lot of new fen seem to not ken the concept that Daredevil, the comic, has been written by several creative teams over the last 50 years. And new collaborators will come in and are given free reign to recreate, upgrade, or change the characters to any degree they like (within reason). The rub here is that sequential art tends to be a very incestuous industry so the biggest reason most new teams will try to respect older character traits or abilities is out of respect for the other creators (many whom they know or have worked with before). But, yes, sometimes a new team comes in and retcons the heck out of something, whether it's the billy clubs or an ability like reading paper with his fingertips or the colour of Matt's hair (he hasn't always been a Ronald McDonald ginger) or Foggy's weight.
So far the most consistent Matt Murdock in existence is the one on the show, but we'll have new showrunners next season so things might change there, too.
Guys, if you had to jump to conclusions, would you think Foggy was not exactly (or only) hetero based on the cues by the show? They put those things in the series for a reason, and it's not like they're pulling the same things from the comics, so. The show uses some pretty stock stereotypes...
Not just appreciating Matt's pretty right away which was very blatant, but Foggy's singing showtunes (look, I know plenty of straight people love showtunes, but I'm pointing at stereotypes here) and mentions poppers in the same scene, and he more or less builds his whole professional life around Matt. The whole Maverick and Goose thing (Goose died, and he was married) was a really funny nod, too, and the minute he has that falling out with Matt, he runs to Marci and they have some (back-channeling again?) presumably drunk, violent sex since she seems to pleased with him (he was 'actually good').
We don't get as many nods for Matt but he's seemingly doing the jealous tripping with his cane thing when he accuses Foggy of chasing a girl via Punjabi class (instead of taking Spanish with Matt), and he's obviously flirting with Foggy in the Uni scene when Foggy's asking why none of Matt's girlfriends work out and what Matt is looking for. Matt 'looks' at Foggy meaningfully and says he's looking for someone he really likes listening to. And Foggy laughs, and Matt laughs, and nothing else is said about it. Of course, in retrospect the only time 'it ever works out' for Matt is his relationship with Foggy, which has outlasted everyone. If they have commitment issues with anyone else, they don't have them with each other.
Matt and Foggy have that 'sounds like we're getting married' scene, which is apropos, and then they have their awful breakup scene with Foggy asking 'was anything ever real with us'? Which still breaks my heart. What other stereotypical nods am I missing?
But if you'd never read a comic nor had any idea who Daredevil was before the show, would you assume Matt and Foggy had a romantic thing in University just based off the show?
The writers definitely put the romantic subtext in there on purpose to emphasize the closeness between the two characters to break our hearts when Foggy left.
Unfortunately, TV land has a history of letting subtext remain subtext :( That is changing though with some shows. Legend of Korra had some (subtle, depending on who you ask) romantic subtext between the two female leads and then they ended up together.
...I wouldn't be surprised if the writers left themselves room to explore the possibility of a not-straight Foggy? but most of it is probably queer baiting, let's be honest. :/
i knew Absolutely Nothing about daredevil when i watched the show first (i didn't even know foggy nelson was a character that existed in the comics) i honest to god thought foggy had gotten flustered when first meeting him -- "a really good looking guy"? SERIOUSLY?
i really hope that they weren't implying foggy's bi/pan and matt's straight, though. i mean, matt murdock really just does not come off as a Strict Heterosexual to me but maybe that's just me being sick of tropes where the "less attractive" character is gay for the "more attractive" straight one.
overall i think you'd have to watch nelson vs murdock with some fairly thick Straight Person Goggles to not get ANY homoerotic vibes off this episode.
as someone who had never heard of daredevil + had no idea what to expect when it came to the characters i couldn't have realistically read foggy as heterosexual. this became especially true once i watched nelson vs murdock ("was anything ever real with us?" look, i know those were extenuating circumstances but i don't feel like that's something one straight man would say to another straight man in any situation)
the other nod that cements my foggy-and-matt-are-or-have-been-more-than-friends-in-some-way-at-some-point belief is in 1x09 after they've shown matt the plaque and matt says to foggy "you're not gonna kiss me" and pushes him back a little and foggy replies "i'm feeling a little something" which to me implies that since matt can use his super-senses to anticipate actions he knew either from a) previous experience with foggy or b) just knowing how to read foggy that foggy would/could have kissed him.
i'm not sure how i read matt exactly. i think matt is just far more reserved as a person especially when it comes to closeness, wether that's a part of his sexuality or a part of his personality i'm not sure. i for sure believe that foggy and matt are soulmates, whether that's strictly platonic or platonic but has-been-romantic-in-the-past or platonic on matt's side but romantic on foggy's side (maybe matt's catholic-guilt is what keeps it platonic on his end??) i just don't know.
i think you'd have to watch nelson vs murdock with some fairly thick Straight Person Goggles to not get ANY homoerotic vibes off this episode
Right? I don't know how anyone could watch it without questioning any of their actions or things they were saying or even suspecting them of having a romantic relationship? Like, how much do you have to miss to not see any of that?
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