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: What makes a good villain?

[(Anonymous)]

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.

Re: What makes a good villain?

[(Anonymous)]

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.

Re: What makes a good villain?

[(Anonymous)]

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.

Re: What makes a good villain?

[(Anonymous)]

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.

Re: What makes a good villain?

[(Anonymous)]

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.