daredevilkink | Discussion/Off-Topic Post #1

...please help. I want to like her, but lately I've been thinking about what she said to Matt.

Now, she's allowed to refuse a relationship for any--or no!--reason. But she does give reasons, so my problem is that her final one really doesn't hold water, as far as I can tell.

First, she claims she doesn't want to start things with him because he is too close to becoming what he hates. Fair enough. Plus, as the writers apparently figured out, she was a bit of a hot mess at the time herself, having just been tortured because people knew she knew at least a little bit about Matt. Good time not to jump into a relationship, I'd say, and the fact that what she says had a lot of validity certainly doesn't hurt.

Then, she says it's because she remembers from Sunday school that the martyrs, the saints, the saviors, all end up bloody and alone. Now that Matt's come to a firmer understanding of where he will not go, and therefore is in less danger of becoming what he hates, you're going to claim that it's his new sense of purpose that is keeping you away? Wow, it's damned if you don't, damned if you do, with her, isn't it?

I'm going to ignore the "bloody" part of her statement, since she's shown absolutely no problem with that particular part of things before (Mrs. Night Nurse, who has just finished patching Matt up and commenting on his shirtlessness), and focus on the "alone."

And the statement is great and genre-savvy of Claire to a certain extent...if she were talking about superheroes. If she were talking about superheroes, it would make sense, because their loved ones get killed off for plot-related purposes all the time, or at least since the Comics Code reign of authority ended. (Usually so the heroes will be pushed closer to the line of "becoming what they hate," obviously.) But that's not at all what she says: she says it's what she remembers from "Sunday school."

Now, my understanding is that Sunday school usually implies a Protestant background, although some Catholic churches occasionally have them (apparently, catechism classes are far more prevalent). So my question is, what kind of morbid Sunday school teacher did Claire have? And what in the world was she studying? Bible stories? Well, not really. There aren't many stories of "martyrs, saints and saviors" dying alone that I can think of, at least not that are actually told in Scripture. Samson, maybe? But he'd been alone (and blinded, ironically enough, and forced to work for his enemies) for years, because of his own sinful foolishness, before he finally managed to kill them off and die in the process. Stephen, the first Christian martyr? Stephen apparently died in the company of God. Kind of the opposite of alone. Elijah spent years on the run, but was finally given a successor to mentor and never actually died. Paul, waiting for his death in prison, wrote about a bajillion letters, many of which are now Holy Writ, in which he obviously continues relationships with friends he's had for years and is thankful for the people who continue to be there for him. I could keep going here, but I think people have gotten my point by now.

In fact, the only example I can think of that fulfills Claire's requirements is Christ Himself, one of whose lines on the cross was "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani," because He was experiencing hell on the cross in the place of those who believe in Him, and that's in large part what hell is: absolute and total separation from God. (According to this Protestant and the Westminster Shorter Catechism, at least). So, in fact, the "martyrs, saints and saviors" are never going to be as "alone" as it is possible to be, if you believe they're going to heaven.

And, Claire, honey? To a certain extent, everybody dies alone. Even if they're surrounded by a million people.

Now, I think what is really a problem for Claire is the whole "playing second fiddle to the needs of a city (or at least Hell's Kitchen)" thing, which they also do talk about. I can maybe understand that (even though she spends her free time patching up a guy because she knows he's trying to help people)? But she doesn't have to justify it by a self-fulfilling prophecy of Matt ending up "bloody and alone." No, Claire, you don't get to drop him like a ton of hot bricks and then claim that it's to help him fulfill his destiny as a "martyr, saint, savior"-type, even if you've tried to use the evidence of poorly-remembered Sunday school classes to back it up. That's being a very bad friend.

And I still wish I knew what kind of teacher(s) Claire had, and what exact material they were teaching. Or maybe I should just chuck it in the "Marvel Universe" box instead, which also holds such things as "Matt and Foggy's strange undergrad/law school" and "Doris Urich with Little Nell's Disease."

tbh, Claire strikes me as someone who's regretted helping Matt the longer she's gotten to know him. And that was further cemented by the annoyed way she was referring to him during her cameo in Jessica Jones, and the put-upon way she acted while helping Jessica and Luke.

Like, she helps because it's her job/moral code to do so, but she does so grudgingly. Which is weird, because it's her own choice to do so. No one's holding a gun to her head.

tl;dr I've liked her less the longer I've gotten to know her, lol.

AYRT: I haven't made it that far in Jessica Jones, yet. And it's kind of depressing, because I was hoping she would be a bright point for the show.

I think I like her less the more I think about her, though, so I can sort of identify? Or maybe it's just that one line.

Also, you're right: she starts out so wholeheartedly into it, and then she gets captured and threatened... and then she thinks the guy she kinda has a thing for is killed when most of the neighborhood goes up in smoke...

Thanks, now I'm seeing Claire's perspective again. Then again, as you said, nobody is putting a gun to her head. Quite the opposite, in fact; the people putting a gun to her head were on the other team.

See, I've liked Claire more and more. Claire is a rock. She's stable, she has a good head on her shoulders, she doesn't take shit from the people who like to run around on roof tops or who insist on stealing critically wounded patients from the hospital. But she helps them anyway, because that's what needs to be done.

Every time she shows exasperation it's been entirely justified. If the heroes in our story are being knuckleheads, guess who's going to call them on it - Claire. Just because she supports them and their overall missions doesn't mean she can't side-eye their poor life choices when said choices are making life difficult for her and others.

I took it as more of a fond 'he's a pain in the ass but he's my pain in the ass' but ymmv

Tbh I think Claire's in over her head, and Matt keeps pulling her farther down. Any kind of relationship should be a two-way street, but Matt just keeps taking and taking from Claire without giving anything back. He assumes that because she helped him once, she will keep helping him forever, even after she's been hurt doing so.
On the roof, he tells her that she's already too far in to back out, and that she lost any right to complain once she pulled him out of the dumpster.

Theres no gun to her head, but there is power in continually showing up injured and telling someone that you'll die/be unable to rescue the kidnapped babies without their help

Really Matt is the problem, I'm glad Claire was somewhat able to break away, and I wish they hadn't been written as such a parasitic relationship. The su

^good points

+1 to all of this.

NAYRT - I agree any relationship with Matt is going to be problematic, it's not ever ever ever going to be a normal relationship, but I don't think it was a parasitic relationship at all because pulling injured people out of dumpsters was something Claire was probably doing before she ever met Matt. Her actions in Jessica Jones cement those life choices as normal. She lives her own life on the fringe, she's not shown as a well-rounded person at all even tho she means well, and she obvs is on board with her job but to hear her tell it, she's very much in the same angry place Matt was when he was hearing people cry out for help every night and he wasn't doing anything about it. Claire has some anger issues of her own after spending all her time as a nurse and hearing the stories of what's happening in the city and helping people who come to see her but not being allowed to ever cure the disease, only help with the endless parade of symptoms. It's got to be frustrating to her, and she says she really wants to believe in what Matt's doing, but she's also the one to leave the city so he can't ask for her help which I thought was a shit thing to do. She KNEW he wasn't going to stop trying to save people and he was going to risk his life doing it, and keep in mind Claire's the one to throw the L word so damned quickly at Matt (which obvs surprises him, and you'd think he'd know how she feels about him but he doesn't) however she felt about him wasn't enough to get her to stay to see it through with him even as emotional support if not physically, and I felt like she ran because she was too close to the situation. Too close emotionally to Matt. All the other stuff, helping him, patching him up, is her MO.

When Claire chooses to help Matt, for the first time she gets to have a hand in finally helping to cure the disease via Matt, and she takes it until the backlash hits her in the face, literally. And even then she wants something more with him, even after she's beaten and bloodied and Matt goes to rescue her (which I kinda feel like that's a 'give' from Matt and not just a 'take' yknow) so I don't see the parasitic relationship you reference. Claire is getting something out of patching Matt up and making him capable of getting back onto the playing field; what she doesn't get is a relationship commitment from Matt. If their relationship was so parasitic, wouldn't Claire have bailed much earlier? Especially if she has such a good head on her shoulders as people are wont to say about her? Matt didn't trap her in the relationship, he tried to protect her and kinda maybe freaked out a tiny bit when she brought up the L word, and THEN Claire decided to leave town. She didn't walk away until it was obvs Matt/Claire wasn't going to be a thing and she's the only one to actually say she'd been wondering about Matt from a romantic perspective. Matt kisses her ONCE, and I believe her really really liked her, but love doesn't seem to have been on his agenda for her. I like Claire but I do have problems with her (and every other character in all these shows, and hallelujah for layered characters, thank you writers) and the timing of her deciding to bail on Matt looks a lot like she'd have stayed if he'd made an emotional commitment to her. It even comes up in Jessica Jones when she says she 'has - HAS' Matt as a friend/OTHER, the way Jessica and Luke are. I'm glad Claire left Matt, I'm sorry on the timing for it, but I was a little crabby about the way she offered Matt's help so blithely to Jessica Jones not even knowing what kind of danger she could have been exposing Matt to. I thought WOW, that's a lot of balls on Claire to leave the city when Matt needs her support but then Claire goes to help someone else she doesn't even know and also offer them Matt's help, too. WOW.

^THIS. All of it, 100% agreed.

re: Sunday school, I took that as the writers being a bit iffy on their religious studies. They may have been thinking of CCD classes instead of Sunday school.

(I was raised Protestant with Catholic friends. Whenever they talked about CCD I translated that in my head to 'Sunday school' because that was the only reference I had, so it's easy for me to think the writers may have done the same thing. *shrug*)

But overall, I'm not inclined to look too deep into what Claire said there, or blame her character for the wording. A surface reading of her dialog ("DANGER MATT MURDOCK, 'BLOODY AND ALONE', YOU ARE WALKING DOWN A DANGEROUS PATH, OH NO") seems to be what the writers were going for rather than religious accuracy.

And besides, imo it's the Doylist perspective that's more relevant than the Watsonian one in the case.

Claire is being set up as a foil to Karen.

It's not something I see mentioned a lot on the meme, because it's not where most people's interests lie, but it's pretty obvious that Matt/Karen is endgame in this show. The writers haven't been subtle about it. And while I *personally* would rather that not happen (for so, so many character-based reasons) there's a lot going on in the very structure of the show that tries to set that dynamic up.

Part of that, I think, is Claire's last speech. She tells Matt, 'I agree with the mission, but what you're doing is something I can't handle in my personal life, you constantly push people away, you're never going to stop, so I'm leaving with a last ominous warning to up the tension of your character arc for the final act. If you're not careful, you're going to end up bloody and alone.'

And not long after that we have the scene with Karen. And what do the writers have Karen say? "YOU'RE NOT ALONE, LET ME EMBRACE YOU." Or something like that. I can't help but imagine the writers/showrunners waving neon signs around their heads at this point going, look, look, it's KAREN, she gets him, she's there for him!!

They had to take Claire out of the picture to make way for Matt/Karen and they did it in a way that furthered Matt's emotional arc AND bolstered Karen's position as Love Interest, which was greatly needed since they had Matt actively avoiding Karen all season long because Foggy had shown interest in her. (Which, eh. There are worse ways to do a love triangle than having the main guy bow out because the best friend liked her, too.)

(also to the writers' credit, at least they let Claire walk out of the picture by her own choice. No fridges needed.)

Agreed. Karen is fucked up in ways that are similar to the way that Matt is fucked up. They're perfect for each other.

AYRT

lmao, actually, that's exactly why I think they're horrible for each other. It's why they're attracted to each other, absolutely. Can't deny that. But for me at least, it's like watching a car crash. They'd enable each other so bad it would be ridiculous. Like. I just want them BOTH to find someone who can keep them from going off the rails.

ayrt, I meant that in more of a "they DESERVE each other" kind of way, but yes.

This is also the reason why Matt is attracted to Elektra. She's his wild side, his dark side, she's far more brazen and unhinged than he is and she takes control away from him when she can. And Matt likes that, he genuinely loved her at one point in his life when he was young and far more innocent (and virginal) and gave her (IMO) too much, and she breaks him in so many ways. It's Stick all over again w/o the sex, but it's also a running theme with Matt that he's sexually attracted to strong, fucked up people who end up hurting him. He's just... prone to give too much of himself to the craziest people on earth and then pays for it, but he doesn't stray from the pattern: Stick, Elektra, Karen, Mary, etc. Everything starts with Stick, though. Of course.

Someone please remind me whether it was Elektra or Mary (in the comics) who comes onto Matt and then is damaging Matt physically while they're having sex and then leaves him on the bed basically bleeding out? It's one of the two but I can't remember which.

AYRT: So I should probably be thinking "Joan of Arc" rather than actual Scripture. Okay, that makes more sense.

I don't actually mind Karen/Matt as endgame, as long as the writers give her an actual character. I have high hopes that that will happen someday. And I actually think Karen gets him more because one of the few things that has become clear about her character is her bone-deep determination to see this thing through to the end, even when it gets hard and scary. In Claire's world, she's probably destined to end up bloody and alone.

But the things is...I don't really think Claire's wrong for thinking that? It's got a HIGH chance of happening, lbr.

It almost happened to Karen in the series after all, twice. First when she was set up for the guy's murder and almost killed in her jail cell, and then again with Wesley. Both times she ended up in those situations because she could not let things go. I'm not putting a value judgement on that, it's just a part of her character. (and props to her, she fought herself out of both messes.) But it's a part of her character that constantly puts her in a position where it is HIGHLY likely she will end up 'bloody and alone.'

In the comics...no, she doesn't end up 'alone' when she gets murdered. But Matt does.

Discussion/Off-Topic Post #1

Having problems with Claire's "bloody and alone"

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Re: Having problems with Claire's "bloody and alone"

Re: Having problems with Claire's "bloody and alone"

Re: Having problems with Claire's "bloody and alone"

Re: Having problems with Claire's "bloody and alone"

Re: Having problems with Claire's "bloody and alone"

Re: Having problems with Claire's "bloody and alone"

Re: Having problems with Claire's "bloody and alone"

Re: Having problems with Claire's "bloody and alone"

Re: Having problems with Claire's "bloody and alone"

Re: Having problems with Claire's "bloody and alone"

Re: Having problems with Claire's "bloody and alone"

Re: Having problems with Claire's "bloody and alone"