daredevilkink | The Defenders-only Discussion Post!

SA

Also law. Matt see law as right and wrong. If a law is wrong according to your conviction, you don't follow it or work to change it. Foggy sees law as maintain order and community in society, thus why he is willing to overlooking breaking the law if it is for the greater good, but vigilantism is a problem, not so much because it is illegal, but because it is illegal to maintain order and harmony by creating an agreement instead of letting each follow their own moralit which could disrupt the community. Also why Foggy gets more critical in season 2 when copycats apparent. Originally he thought DD may do more harm than good because he helped people, but if he inspires copycats that kill people, that get themselves or others hurt, or simply send the message that each can follow their own beliefs no matter who it hurt, now DD is a problem because it is more harm than good. (I really think this is what he meant by "you can't create danger [i.e. Copycats like Castle] and then protect us from it [and act like that's a noble thing to do], that's not heroic, it's insane." Not that he thought Matt was inventing danger as some have posited.)

I think it's a nagging belief that's only gotten stronger the longer Matt's life has gone on. And as you said, his life can be seen often as a 'one-offs'--he meets Foggy but has to lie to him, he loves Elektra but when he affirms that he won't kill someone he loses her, he gets to become Daredevil but that almost makes him lose Foggy (and later it sort of does completely), Elektra comes back but that wrecks his life, etc, etc. He feels, I think, like he is meant to suffer and end up dying for the good of everyone else, and so he heads towards that goal full-heartedly.

This is also why I think he's not good at doing what Foggy asks of him, or requests of him--he knows one day he'll die, and he doesn't see why delaying it would help. He knows he's doomed, so he doesn't think he's going to have a long happy life, and so it's difficult to impossible for him to try to be more careful in the present-day. He also knows damn well that Foggy doesn't see Daredevilling as a 'part' of Matt so much as something Matt 'does', which is why he feels rejected and abandoned by Foggy's attitude in S2 and in the Defenders until Foggy gives him the suit--because that moment, to me, says 'I know you, you're going to be out there, that's who you are and I'll help you be who you are', and Matt's shocked by it and so happy with it.

Agreed, I love the twistiness and even when they aggravate him and us, I think Matt needs all these contrasts around him. One of the thematic questions DDS2 and The Defenders wants us to think about is, are we completely sure Matt himself isn't one of the antiheroes? Is he effectively straddling that line, or does he just think he is? The whole team has personal flaws, of course, but Matt is the only one strangling a member of the Hand until he passes out. Which is a moment I love for the horrified looks on the rest of the team's faces and Danny's, uh, is he dead? Yes, Matt has been set off by the reappearance of Elektra, but that's also just kind of the way he does things. (Something that's underscored every time he tries to fight one of the team, lol Matt.) But then we get Stick executing people with his sword and disappearing the parts to remind us that, well, okay, Matt could be much worse.

Like Frank says - you're one bad day away from being me. But this is one of the reasons labels and questions of Who Was Right become so difficult around Matt - everything is relative, and that's kind of the point.

So what's your explanation for Davos' perfect English? You think 10 year-old Danny taught him to speak like that?

And really??? K'un Lun is not general knowledge in modern New York so therefore "no one seems to have heard about" it??? What about Stick and the Chaste??? They have a drawing of K'un Lun on the wall of the weapons shop they were working out of! There has clearly been a history of communication between them! But sure, modern English "doesn't even blip on their radar." *rolls eyes*

SA

Also, the Mandarin Danny was taught in K'un Lun is obviously modern enough to be easily understood, so the argument that languages would have changed there that much also doesn't make sense. Being a place with limited accessibility is NOT the same as being completely cut off. There is reasonably frequent contact between the two worlds, as evidenced by the footage of a previous Iton Fist that Danny was shown.

SA

And by your logic I suppose we are to believe that there couldn't possibly be any sites in the modern world where significant (not necessarily large, but significant) numbers of people make spiritual and religious pilgrimages, simply because the average American has never heard of them.

Stick wasn't a particularly likable person in s.1, but that's when he was written the best.

Season one: Stick comes to Matt's orphanage, trains him, gets attached to him, and abandons him after a simple gesture. Refusing to take Matt as a soldier may or may not be an act of protection. Then he comes back, ropes Matt in into his fight, introduces the concept of a Black Sky, spills a bit of bullshit about himself and the Chaste (he claims that he was the child that started it, and also that no one knows how old the Chaste is), kills a child, fights with Matt and leaves that bracelet behind when he walks out.

It's not perfectly consistent, but almost. It works.

Season two: Stick adopts and trains the young Black Sky in some place full of Chaste members. Kinda strange considering everything he said about Black Sky in s.1, and that he killed one without remorse. Also stupid to take her to a Chaste place, and kinda strange considering he never did that with Matt. Why the change? Then he gives her up for adoption, abandoning her just like Matt. Okay. Then he comes back and gets her to spy on Matt and rope him back in. Strange, but okay. Then a few more years pass, and he sends her to Matt one more time. He saves her life, then tries to kill her, then gives a fierce talk about how dangerous and not-human she is (which he knew all along, particularly when she was dying and he was saving her life like days before), then goes to fight the Hand, then buries Elektra and walks out of the cementary, the end.

Okay, so consistency is shot to hell now. You don't train a kid that you know is inhumanly dangerous *and will have to die by your hand one day*. You don't give them to normal people afterwards. You don't save a life of someone you're planning to kill. You don't come back as you please after abandoning someone. You don't leave your students only to come back and manipulate them into working for you. I can buy this as a sort of emergency tactic once, but this is, what, four times? Seriously, does the Chaste not have any actual soldiers Stick can use? Where *is* the Chaste, actually?

The Defenders: Apparently Stick walked out Matt's life, which seems kinda strange after all the effort he put into pulling him back into his orbit, and with Black Sky and the Hand both in New York, no less. We get one more dramatic reunion. Then Stick... talks a lot, and sits a lot. He *doesn't* kill Elektra, which considering that he was willing to when she had still been herself, and he kept talking about how she isn't anymore, is kinda strange. Then he falls onto his back, and there's a lot of tense staring for a while, and then he dies.

So nothing much happens, nothing much is done by Stick, nothing much is the reason why he dies, and nothing much is explained about how all of the Chaste is suddenly dead, conveniently except for Stick (for a while, at least).

THIS. Well, most of this. The blood-draining scene wasn't my favorite. The hospital-zombie kids that followed that motive were such a cliche B-rate horror movie scene that I feel my intelligence suffered from watching it.

But yes, not only Madam Gao is suddenly the Hand (okay, so that started in Iron fist, but still; it used to be Nobu and the Japanese, now it's Gao and... everyone?), but she is also a minion.

Why aren't the Hand Asian anymore? The whole multi-multi thing is throwing me off.

I can't see how an impossibly powerful organisation could be set up in however-long-ago-that-was by five people sitting on five different continents, who came from five different cultures and speak five different languages. Even if they understood each other through some language-of-Kun Lun, and could communicate via incense or something, I can't imagine they'd be able to create anything durable together. Their goals and values wouldn't align.

Why are some of the "founders" of an age-old organisation apparently in their thirties? No, I'm sorry, I'm not buying it.

And who the hell *is* Alexandra and how did she come out of nowhere only to die five episodes in? She was brilliantly played, yes, but the very *concept* of her character was bad writing.

And, yes. Dragon bones my ass.

Can I just strongly agree with you here?

Do they all print money in their spare time or something? Coleen left her dojo for the life of adventure, but she at least has a Very Rich Boyfriend. Fine. But what about the others?

- Claire hasn't had a job for what seems like at least a year now. She's doing just fine, despite the fact that *her* boyfriend is spending most of his time in various prisons.

- Jessica has been avoiding her own clients since the mess with Killgrave, which must be a few months ago at least. Yet somehow, rent still isn't a problem. I guess she earns enough to save up half a year worth of rent, groceries and alcohol money while also drinking her weigh in whiskey?

- Matt is happily working "pro bono". He has no intention of changing that anytime soon. And the fact that he doesn't get paid by *any* of his clients, and apparently hasn't been since the dissolving of Nelson&Murdock, doesn't seem to weigh on his ability to live in a loft and pay for his, um, everything at all.

I know money is almost never a problem in tv, but this is ridiculous.

Matt's at least is covered in the show--apparently Elektra left her sizeable assets & cash up to him, so he's living and working off of that.

That's the general assumption, but was that actually mentioned in the show?

LOL wow I have a whole different interpretation of his appearance in Defenders? Mostly I'm glad to get closure on his appearance in DD s2 because if we'd never seen him again after that I'd have been so angry. :)

I just like to assume Matt's a rent boy and always has been.

DA
Actually no, I assumed it's the money she gave Matt for his job, the one he showed Foggy and said he didn't want it

No, of course he had to appear again. I mean, first of all, he was still pretty much there when s.2 ended. He has no reason to disappear, and every reason to stay.

In regards to Matt, he won: Matt cut all the ties with his friends, just like Stick wanted. And the Hand is still around, waiting to make their next move. Elektra is dead, but Stick would have to be very naive to think that will stick (heh), with everything he knows about both Black Sky/Elektra and the Hand.

Stick still has a war to fight in New york. He also still has one kid to protect (or whatever else it is he does with Matt). Considering he just lost the other one, simply leaving Matt on his own seems kinda strange.

And, like I said: he worked so hard to pull Matt back in, repeatedly over the years, and now that he finally has him right where he wants him, hes just going to walk out? Yeah, I don't think so.

What's your interpretation?

Well, it would certainly make for some colorful confessions...

Ah, okay, I guess that could carry him for a while. Still, money that seems incredibly large at first tends to run out pretty quickly once you have no other money coming in. Rent, bills, all the everyday stuff - it all adds up pretty quickly.

And we should have at least gotten some worried comments from Foggy about that. The way he talks about "staying pro bono" makes it seem like the most normal job ever, one you can just do indefinitely without any problem. That's not how life works.

Nah, too cartoonish for me. Not a very big fan of superpowers in general, to be honest.

... then why are you here?

That's not how life works.

There are superpowered people in this show fighting zombie ninjas and this is the one thing that stands out as not being realistic lol? Not to offend anyone here, but when the laws of physics were thrown out of the Marvel universe so Matt's billy club works just like Captain America's shield, I knew I was going to have to handwave a lot of comic book nonsense. Because bad pseudoscience is my trigger. You're totally right that the writing is so inconsistent and there's a lot of in-universe stuff that's not supported by the writing, but how Matt supports himself as a pro bono lawyer wasn't one of them for me. Someone here said Elektra's exorbitant payment and that's what I was going with too. She's running some corporate money of her own so it's also possible she left a life insurance policy in Matt's name. Just saying.

I was a little upset with JJ's lack of strength in Defenders, yeah. Her strength seems to wax and wane according to whatever is needed in the scene, and that's one of my issues with JJ on her show, too. It could be her? She's prone to panic attacks and is drawn as a fearful individual at times. Maybe she's just scared at some points in the show, she's still human.

Half of Daredevil and all of Luke Cage is literally about poverty. This isn't handwaveable. Fictional universes have to at least follow their own rules.

The anger in this post was extremely unnecessary.

There was nobody left in the building, Matt stated this explicitly.

I mean, you do realize you're watching a bunch of superhero shows, right? lol

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