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.
Re: What's up with the Karen hate??
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.