daredevilkink | The Defenders-only Discussion Post!

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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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What about Elektra and Frank. I know they're technically antiheroes but what tips them over into villain territory? How far do they have to go before they're villains? They've both tried to kill Matt or force him to kill but they've both rescued him, too.

Ehhh, Elektra is very much a villain in my eyes. Frank though, has a very strict moral code to himself--him being a villain would mean him breaking it, IMHO.

Oh now I'm curious! What makes Elektra a villain? Do you think there's a chance at redemption for her?

DA.
In front of Matt's eyes she has will always have redemption. I thibnk Elektra will be like the comic version an enemy that Matt will always love and have a soft spot for.

What makes her a villain to me is that she acts primarily out of selfishness and greed to me. She doesn't care that she's destroying Matt's life or that she's terrible for him, and she doesn't care about letting him down gently or helping him still have a job. She simply pursues the image in her head of a fantasy romance with him, ignoring his own actual consent and desires. She just never thinks once about what's actually best for her supposed lover. Even when she takes over the Hand to ostensibly save him, she ends up begging him to stay down with her and be crushed by a building, possibly to bring him back to life with the Substance, even though Matt would never want that. Her entire role is to destroy his morals, his friendships, and his life within the story--an archetypal villian, though not one totally without motive.

In terms of redemption, I think it's possible, if unlikely--I think she could do it, but it would mean telling Matt that she's sorry for lying to him and corrupting him and hurting him, and it would take her leaving his life a la Angel leaving Buffy.

We're talking about Matt Murdock. He forgives everyone for everything. He didn't even blame Frank for shooting him in the head, he blamed himself for missing the gun and should have caught it. Going back to DD season 2, Elektra is the one who's telling Matt to get her, and she means she wants him to stop her, GET ME, and he does. It's probably one of the reasons why he feels like Elektra is his problem, he's the one who needs to deal with her because she warned him all along that she needs someone to stop her. He's not going to hold her responsible for much except maybe killing Stick, he'll probably blame himself for a lot of it, and he was still willing to kiss her right before they died. He's going to have a lot to deal with once he wakes up, but I don't think Elektra's redemption is going to go the way you want, because Matt's will always give her another chance to redeem herself.

IMHO, redemption to me wouldn't just mean Matt's forgiveness, it would mean her making amends to everyone else, including Jessica, the families of everyone she's killed, Stick, etc...and to the audience. Whether or not the writers will give us that, ehhh.

Everybody seems to forgive Frank for doing a lot of the exact same things Elektra has done, both to Matt and to everyone around them. Their patterns are so similar, I don't really understand why Frank gets a pass and Elektra doesn't.

Because she commits the sin of being a woman and not being white.

Because Frank isn't Matt's friend or ex. He isn't betraying Matt to an organization, or pretending to be into him--he has no obligation to Matt. The rooftop scene is him trying to force Matt to admit that his crimefighting philosophy is useless and stupid, not him necessarily trying to bring Matt down to his level. (In the comics scene it's based off of, Matt fires at Frank.)

Also, Frank Castle has a very rigid moral code that he adheres to with a level of strictness that's even more than MCU!Matt--he never allows for collateral damage, he never kills a random innocent, he never stops, etc. He doesn't even kill most mob wives because there's no proof that they were complicit or active in the crimes of their husbands.

Also, Frank has an established fanbase and isn't astonishingly fucking boring.

Um. Matt's philosophy isn't useless and stupid to him, tho. Frank tied Matt up and tried to force him to kill someone. How is that not already crossing his 'very rigid moral code'? He doesn't kill an innocent but it's okay to force an innocent to kill? And I mean on the show as opposed to the comics.

Maybe I'm wrong but it does look like Frank is okay with collateral damage on the show, because we never once see him gather info about who's innocent and who's guilty before he kills them. Him saying he never doubts himself, him saying nobody got hurt who didn't deserve it, then we see him doubt himself, and we see him lay people out for bait. There are entire scenes in Defenders about how people make shitty decisions and do bad things for good reasons. We've never seen Frank take any of that into consideration on the show. The reason Matt knows who's innocent or guilty is because he can tell when they're lying, and even that has been known to not work right! As for the comics, there are countless issues where someone gets killed/broken, even kids, as collateral damage because of Frank's war so I don't know what you're talking about. He doesn't go out intending for those things to happen, but they sure as hell do, repeatedly. And Frank never stops his war regardless. He has a moral code but it's fallible and people die on his watch when he makes shitty decisions with good intentions just like everyone else. He's not perfect. We're probably going to see that soon in the Punisher series.

The way that Frank sees it, though, Matt isn't an innocent--Matt is complicit in the murders, etc, that happen after he lets criminals live. That's why Frank tries to get him to cross over to his side, because he thinks of what Matt's doing as exactly as morally wrong as what they're doing.

And yeah, in the MCU this is baby!Punisher who's just getting started and doesn't have a handle on himself.

Nope, Frank won't kill Matt because he's an innocent, he says so countless times. You sound like someone who's heard a lot of things about Punisher but haven't actually read his comics.

To butt in for a sec, speaking as a Frank fan from the comics, he does kill a lot of evil people but his record with collateral damage on innocents is pretty shit. It's something that he deals with regularly.

Frank on the show is doing some serious damage to people too, not just Matt and Karen but like the kid in the court room. Even innocent bystanders like Foggy because Frank torched his own trial, he just dgaf. The whole point of s 2 was showing how poor life choices can snowball into an avalanche and bury your ass, good intentions or not. Nobody is blameless or pure. Just saying.

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