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The Defenders-only Discussion Post!

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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.

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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?

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

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.

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.

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.

DA just wanting to point out that everybody's ability to suspend disbelief is sort of different and can be set off by different things.

And that I think the other anons are correct to point out that it is one thing to be asked to suspend disbelief within the rules of tbe universe (e.g. in this universe, people can fly so deal with it). That level of disbelief is necessary for science fiction or fantasy to even be possible.

It is another thing for the universe to set up its own internal logic inconsistently (e.g. sometimes people like Mrs. Cardenas will be poor and we will ask you to note that and care about it, but other times money will be a non-issue when we can't be bothered).

It's why characters not worrying about money is a problem here. The show has already introduced the idea that money matters in this universe - it is built into the gritty tone of the shows and the way that money concerns allow characters to be taken advantage of or bribed or in trouble in the narrative.

I don't think anyone is complaining about the lack of crushing poverty in, say, Gilmore Girls or Friends where when the show does bring money up it already sets the poverty level at ridiculously not worried about it. It is the fact that the universe is breaking its own rules that is the problem here.

So it may not bother you. But that doesn't make it not an example of shitty writing, which is what this thread is about.

There are different levels of realism. There's the nominal realism, which is reflecting things in art exactly as they are in the real world. And then there's functional realism, which means if you make changes within your portrayed reality, you stick to them and let the consequences play out.

Then there's the background realism: considering that this is New York, not Middle Earth we're talking about, there are some basic rules that need to be followed, unless you explicitly break them. The fact that people can fly in your universe doesn't change the fact that unless you create a rule saying otherwise, they still need to eat.

In Marvel movies, there's an implicit rule that money is almost never an issue, because the character that's playing host to the other characters is ridiculously rich, some of the characters are of the spy-assassin variety that have well-stocked accounts laying around and quick but shady ways to make new money should the accounts fail, and they also all have stable if secret jobs that may or may be paying them in big bucks. So it works.

In Marvel tv, it doesn't work. In fact, there's an explicit rule here that these people - except maybe for Danny - are all everyday citizens who are, among other things, struggling to pay their bills. Except now suddenly they don't, and there's no actual reason for the change.

Just saying.

Well, we don't know what the sizeable amount was, do we? Whatever it was was obviously way more than what the job was worth, and Elektra was running a corporation and was probably some sort of billionaire so maybe the assumption that it could carry Matt for a while is wrong and it could actually carry Matt for years.

For me, Foggy not being worried about it flagged that he knew Matt was financially secure. Foggy's only concern is Matt backsliding into being Daredevil. If Foggy had every day financial concerns about Matt not being able to eat, maybe it would have come up? But since everybody had only one devil-shaped concern about Matt's life and health, I didn't think about his means either.

I think it could be argued that Matt isn't doing ONLY pro bono work. He's probably taking regular billable clients just like any other lawyer.

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

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

In Matt's case, it may depend on exactly how he does his pro bono work.

For example, legal aid lawyers work pro bono, in that they're not paid by their client, but they are salaried employees of their organizations. Matt probably isn't one of these, since there'd be similar issues as he had working for Nelson and Murdock.

Some smaller legal aid organizations contract with private attorneys or clinics though. And smaller firms/solo practitioners might be able to qualify for some state or county specific grants. They'd then bill a certain number of hours a year and be paid for it.

I mean, this is all speculation, but it's somewhat feasible, even if you leave aside the inheritance from Jack or possibly Elektra.

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