The Defenders-only Discussion Post!

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The Defenders Prompt Post

Talk about the Defenders! Speculate, discuss, squee and debate. There's a thread for each episode so you can discuss what you've watched so far without being spoiled for future episodes - click on top level view to see only the first comment in each thread and stay spoiler-free.

Anon commenting is not mandatory for this post. Playing nice is always mandatory.

Comments

Re: Episode 1 Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

Matt being so obviously fake-smiley with Karen in the diner was awful. The way Karen talked to him, and Matt's reaction. How does she not see how uncomfortable he is or that he's lying about missing being DD? It was cringe-worthy, I just wanted it to stop. He was so deferential to her, like he had to be, and then he told Father Lantom he loved her and I just... is he lying to her and hoping she'll love him if he just cooperates with what she wants? That is some depressing bs.

Re: Episode 1 Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

So I know that there is just so much Karen hate happening and I just want to bring another perspective on this up...

In S2, Karen and Matt aren't in love with each other. They're in love with these idealized notions they have about each other.

Matt loves Karen because he sees her as this innocent who is the exact opposite of Elektra (basically the woman she was in the early comics) - the girl next door who will be stable and sweet.

Karen loves Matt because (and yes, there is some ableism on her part at play here) she feels the need to protect him and sees him as this principled and morally upright fighter for justice who doesn't let the world bring him down.

At the end of S2, Matt punctured Karen's vision of him as that. He took that away from her, and now she's angry.

And maybe she also feels guilty herself and is manifesting some self-loathing that's coming out as attacks on him because she knows that she hasn't punctured his vision of her yet.

That's why he tells Lantom he loves her. That's why he is still acting so smitten with her and so sweet with her and trying so hard when she is clearly at a point where she's over it or at least wants to be.

The Matt/Karen relationship is intentionally supposed to be uncomfortable. Because in S2 both of them had no clue who the other really was. And now only one of them does. And it can't move forward until Karen is willing to stop being a hypocrite and tell Matt the truth about herself and see if he still sticks around.

That to me is how I've always read the Matt/Karen dynamic.

I get why fans hate her in that context. I just think it's unfair, and I'm interested to see where it goes once they both get really honest with each other.

Re: Episode 1 Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, thank you, all of this. 100%.

Re: Episode 1 Discussion

[(Anonymous)]

I get what you're saying here, and it's clear that Karen and Matt were talking past each other to some degree in DD s2. It's also clear that Karen hasn't come clean to Matt about herself yet in Defenders. I don't think the Karen hate is unfair, I think it's earned, just really reactionary. As earned as some of the Foggy hate. Excuse me if I hash things out a little here.

Karen was mad crushing on Daredevil before she ever found out he was Matt, and she was crushing on Matt when she was 'dating' Foggy. So if she's been a DD champion, if she believes that Daredevil made the city a better place, as she says, how does Matt being DD puncture her worldview of Matt rather than raising the property value, so to speak? That's the part that doesn't ring true. Because he doesn't need her the way she thought he needed her? I could understand that but it would also make her a tremendous asshole to want to keep Matt down to being the sweet, blind guy she thought he was. She's had months to come to grips with this information by the time we see them in the diner, and it's not like she's even that close to Matt anymore in Defenders. They don't hang out, they don't spend time with each other, and it looks like Foggy and Karen are only checking on Matt when there's stress in his life (or to make sure he's not putting on the devil suit again). So I get your points and they're good points, but I'm not only looking at how Karen is treating Matt if she's his love interest, but how she's treating him as a friend. And she's not either one of those things. Even if she noped out of having a love affair with Matt, they're still friends, right? Maybe? But she's become another Foggy for Matt, and we saw how that relationship worked out in DD. It seems like fans are judging Karen more harshly than Foggy because Matt thinks Karen is the romantic option. He loves her as the romantic option, and he's willing to stand up for himself with Foggy, we see that in the bar, but Matt's responses and actions toward Karen are... wholly different. It's depressing. Maybe one of the problems is that we're judging Karen harshly because we don't know her story, her backstory, her motivations, we know almost nothing about her. But we know Matt and why he is who he is. So there's more sympathy for Matt's issues and maybe not as much for Karen, and that's depressing, too. Unlike Matt, I can't love someone if I don't know anything about them.

All of these characters make terrible life choices, nobody is blameless, everybody is messed up to some degree, I get it. But if Elektra is toxic to Matt, then Karen is also toxic but in a very different way. And honestly this also makes Foggy toxic since last season, and we saw the fallout to that. With Matt and Elektra the point was made repeatedly that they're bad for each other because they're corrupting each other, they're not letting the other breathe and be who they really are. It's not a healthy relationship, it's smothering and stifling on each side. But that's exactly what Foggy was doing to Matt last season and now Karen has joined his party in Defenders. With Karen it's a little harder to take since, unlike Foggy, who at least has hated on DD since the very beginning, Karen's been very supportive of DD, even when she was alone in it. This is one of the biggest reasons why I'm confused.

If the reasoning that Karen can't support Matt being DD is because she's ableist, as others have said, then that still makes Karen an asshole. If she's just badly wanting to protect Matt at all costs, okay, I can buy that as a very emotional first response, I can even get behind it, but now that she knows he's DD and has seen him out there, how does that still work as her excuse, months later? And at what cost? When Matt is across the table from her obviously, painfully, missing being DD? She's not nice and pure and sweet and never was, and I'm perfectly okay with that. Matt has to understand that as well, and I'm okay with that, too. I'm upset that Matt is still sleeping on who Karen is but try to understand I'm personally upset because now I'm questioning why I'm waiting until the next season (and the next and the next and the next) to understand Karen. Maybe this is as good as it gets. Matt has enough people being shit to him, he doesn't need his besties or lovers adding to it.

Karen is LOT to take in Defenders. He goes to get her to safety and she agrees to it, but says she's not doing it for him but out of self-preservation? Uhh, why not kick him in the balls while you're at it, Karen? It would have been kinder to just tell him she doesn't care about him anymore if she can't not only appreciate he's singled her out as one of Matt Murdock's people, but also doesn't even respect his request. Matt takes so long to stand up for himself with her, it's nice when it finally happens but it's also an acceptance that his relationship with Karen is probably over.