daredevilkink | The Defenders-only Discussion Post!

Exactly! And I think that it's actually easier for Frank and him to have that conversation than Foggy and Matt for the simplest reason that Frank has no prior relationship or expectations of him. They don't already have feelings and assumptions about each other that would interfere in it, and Matt literally can't squirm his way out of the conversation. At the end of the day, Matt and Frank are both very literal and serious about their philosophies, and neither of them is stoppable except by their own deaths.

I think that Matt's Catholicism also gives him an intense, devout sense of his own martyrdom being beautiful and him being doomed to it no matter what he does, as well as a sense that he's willing to dive headfirst into suffering because it is almost a form of love for him--to do so much, to take on what must be done.

Wow yeah, now you say it I think that's true. He has a ton of investment in that idea of pain and suffering being functional. And maybe all this mortification of the flesh isn't just for the soul of Hell's Kitchen. He knows being Daredevil is a sin even if he thinks it's a necessary one, so maybe he thinks his suffering helps balances things out.

Which is another way that he and Foggy/Karen would be talking past each other, because he hears Foggy when Foggy says he doesn't want Matt to get hurt, but to Matt getting hurt is just a necessary part of the process.

(Admittedly I love the pretty tragedy of Matt/Elektra and now the idea that Matt basically "died" for Elektra's sins is giving me way too many feelings.)

Complete religious tangent but I am now picturing Matt deathfic in which the Catholics of Hell's Kitchen basically decide that Matt's service to the community and whatever type of heroic, martyred death make him worthy to be beatified/canonised and Church officials try to ignore their Violent Vigilante for Sainthood campaign in the hopes that it will just go away and the Defenders/Foggy/Karen are not trying to be insensitive? But they are really weirded out by all the pilgrims turning up on their doorsteps, and Jessica really does not want to hear any more babbling about how Matt appeared to someone in a dream or whatever.

Made all the more awkward when Matt later turns up alive, of course.

That would be awesome! And his resurrection would seem to be a miracle, too, of course, especially if Matt had no idea how he lived.

And part of the thing is that I definitely see Foggy having a lot of difficulty interpreting things through Matt's lens. He would see it as self-hatred and even punishing himself, and to a degree it is that, but Matt's whole thing is to do the sinful thing as a way of preventing other sins. He wants to help people, not just by saving them, but by preventing them from having to become him. (Another way he and Frank are similar.) He knows it's sinful and wrong, and that's why he probably confesses to it, but he must do it for the sake of everyone else, even if that means Purgatory after his death and his injuries and his fallings-out.

I think this aspect can be seen in the whole human traffickers episode--he almost dies, is horribly injured, is weak and targeted by hitmen, has to torture a guy on a rooftop and almost kill him, and he goes back and visibly forces himself to keep getting back into the fight, all to save the kid and carry him to safety. That's his whole Daredevilling. Does he clearly enjoy torturing the dude and beat up the other dudes? Yes. But he also does it for a fundamentally good reason, and with awareness of who is and what he's doing.

Yes! I find that episode so uncomfortable to watch but (and these two things are probably related) it is great for underscoring Matt as a man With a Mission. And yes, it is mostly very purposeful. The early scenes with Father Lantom do a great job with the undercurrents of the idea that Matt is aware that this choice will probably or even definitely keep him out of heaven. He completely acknowledges that, then does it anyway, because it needs doing.

So he loves Foggy and Karen, but honestly, if the thought of rejecting God (which is basically what committing a sin on purpose is and why Father Lantom is like wtf, strange dude, you can't confess *in advance*) and being eternally punished for it isn't enough to scare him straight, the sad and disappointed voices of his friends aren't likely to make a dent.

And the other problem is that, I think, a lot of Foggy and Karen's reasons why Matt shouldn't do it are fundamentally things Matt doesn't care about. Foggy's like "but I don't want you getting hurt/ I want us to be normal/ I want you to be happy" and Matt doesn't think he *can* not be hurt and not-normal and unhappy, and Karen has even more arguments in that vein but all of which rely on this idea that, like, there's a Matt Murdock without the violence and rage who maybe if he really did stop wearing the Daredevil suit and would go to therapy (or date Karen/Foggy lol) and lived a 'normal' life would finally be unlocked. But that's not true, it's like Daredevil is a mask that Matt puts on, it's fundamentally a way for him to show a part of who he truly *is* that isn't nice or comfortable but is very, very true to life. He isn't addicted to violence so much as incapable of balancing the different people that he is, and they cannot accept that maybe he *can't* be normal and he *can't* go back to pretending to just be like any other guy.

Oh yeah, very true, this conversation goes nowhere until Foggy and Karen admit that they are pushing for the return of a guy who doesn't exist. Though in what I guess is their defense, Matt has only just reached the point where he is willing to tell them that.

Yeah, none of them have actually communicated very well with this. Though I cheered when Matt responded to Karen's inane "you're almost back to your life" with "this is my life", which sort of encapsulates why she frustrates me. She barely knows this guy, met one facet of him and declared it to be the 'real' him all the while finding Daredevil hot and then denouncing him after Daredevil saved her life, which is honestly just so irritating. Pick a side, Karen!

I think that Matt's Catholicism also gives him an intense, devout sense of his own martyrdom being beautiful and him being doomed to it no matter what he does, as well as a sense that he's willing to dive headfirst into suffering because it is almost a form of love for him--to do so much, to take on what must be done.

As a lapsed Catholic, this thought speaks to me on such profound levels. It makes so much sense wrt Matt's philosophies and faith. It's also something that's been baked into him, though. Or something that he grabbed onto in the orphanage? Because he's not particularly Catholic as a child. But as a child, when he still had his sight, he was already a tiny hero and maybe the Catholicism gave him a better reason for it, or grounded him or something. There's a lot of suffering-for-others in the bible and with Matt, landmark moments in his life reflect the same. It's like every time he does something good, something bad happens. He saves a life, he loses his sight. He keeps his father on his feet during that last fight, to paraphrase Frank Castle, he loses his father. He finally learns to control his senses, Stick leaves him. It's like there's some sort of equivalent exchange pattern set up, like suffering is expected and inescapable. Maybe you're right that he sees death as fate, and he's accepted martyrdom as the best, most beautiful outcome he'll pay for doing what needs to be done.

Slight segue, there's another comment here about some of the themes in Defenders being (found) family, love and sacrifice. How Stick had a chance to kill Elektra and he freezes because in spite of thinking she's a monster, he still loves her. And Elektra kills him. Love is what gets Stick killed. The same thing 'kills' Matt later. DD and Defenders have managed to take such beautiful themes like love and sacrifice and family and twist them into very complicated, unexpected knots that don't work in conventional ways. Frank and Matt? Idek what to call them but yeah, they feel necessary to each other. Karen and Foggy? Besties? Worsties? Idk. Are the Defenders friends? Teammates? Workmates? Idk! Honestly it's the most amazing and annoying thing that idk how to label these relationships lol. But I do love, like someone else said here, that Matt probably has a better understanding--and is better understood, by the anti-heroes than anyone else on these shows.

DA
"Matt probably has a better understanding--and is better understood, by the anti-heroes than anyone else on these shows."

This si so true and i think it's for the same reason he is so confortable with Elektra. They don't know about Matt the lawyer, the Matt that has to put on a different mask everyday of his life, and this is the Matt that Foggy and Karen knows but which one is the real Matthew Murdock. The answers is easy.. it's both but Matt doesnt know how to balance that. Charlie Cox said in a recent even that Matt Murdock is the fake persona but Daredevil wants to be like Matt Murdock and Matt Murdock wants to be like Daredevil so how do we balance that, that's the point that they haven't shown yet and i think we are gonna get there in s3.

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.

The Defenders-only Discussion Post!

Re: Friends and enemies and Matt

Re: Friends and enemies and Matt

Re: Friends and enemies and Matt

Re: Friends and enemies and Matt

Re: Friends and enemies and Matt

Re: Friends and enemies and Matt

Re: Friends and enemies and Matt

Re: Friends and enemies and Matt

Re: Friends and enemies and Matt

Re: Friends and enemies and Matt

Re: Friends and enemies and Matt