MCU: Phases? What Phases???

[Myrddin]

Or the answer can be both characters are both right and wrong. Bruce assumes Jen's light hearted demeanor means she's never had to repress or control her anger. And Jen assumes her fight to excel in an aggressive profession outweighs Bruce's 15 year struggle and anger management experience.

They both can learn from each other.

 

[DaveSumm]

42 minutes ago, KalVsWade said:

Yes, 'infinitely' is an incorrect statement literally. Congrats, you've won the internet. I'm sure no one in the history of humanity has ever spoken with any kind of hyperbole.

So which is it, is she right? Or is it hyperbole? 

I don’t really care, the line didn’t bug me that much. But it seems stupid not to concede that she has not had to control her ‘infinitely’ more than Bruce. Yes, he slips every once in a while when an Avengers film rolls around so we get some entertainment. But his entire character, more than any character in the history of fiction that I can think of, is about controlling anger. You can split hairs and call it  ‘repressing’ and say it’s unhealthy, but it works. He has managed to not be Hulk for a large portion of the last 15 years. 

It was a badly written line. They could have very easily tweaked it and the point would still stand just fine, but without the absurd exaggeration. 

[Heartofice]

4 minutes ago, Myrddin said:

Or the answer can be both characters are both right and wrong. Bruce assumes Jen's light hearted demeanor means she's never had to repress or control her anger. And Jen assumes her fight to excel in an aggressive profession outweighs Bruce's 15 year struggle and anger management experience.

They both can learn from each other.

 

Well Bruce makes assumptions about Jen’s condition based on his own experiences, her also being his cousin it’s a safe assumption things would work the same way. He’s shown to be wrong in the same scene.
 

Jen does try to make comparisons to Bruce’s 15 year struggle to her experiences being a woman, her conclusion being that being a woman means she’s has had to control her anger more than a man who has a condition where anger could destroy millions of people. Clearly she is wrong, but it’s not clear whether the show recognises that. 

[Kalbear]

Just now, DaveSumm said:

So which is it, is she right? Or is it hyperbole? 

I don’t really care, the line didn’t bug me that much. But it seems stupid not to concede that she has not had to control her ‘infinitely’ more than Bruce. Yes, he slips every once in a while when an Avengers film rolls around so we get some entertainment. But his entire character, more than any character in the history of fiction that I can think of, is about controlling anger. You can split hairs and call it  ‘repressing’ and say it’s unhealthy, but it works. He has managed to not be Hulk for a large portion of the last 15 years. 

By being a hermit, going away from anyone he cares about, taking drugs, using bizarre sexist hypnosis, and avoiding any and all responsibility. 

Not a great coping mechanism!

And when he doesn't do that - when he actually participates in anything - he invariably fails. We have fewer examples of him actually succeeding in controlling his anger than him succumbing and failing to it. You'll also notice that Bruce only has successfully dealt with being Hulk by actually embracing that side of him and not repressing it. It only took him most of his adult life to come to the realization that repressing rage isn't great; Jen knew this probably since she was like 9.  

By comparison Jen actually has done this infinitely more. She has not gone away from society or her career or her life because that was not an option. She has become a successful lawyer and human woman in part by entirely being able to control her anger at all of these situations. So yeah, she's significantly more practiced - and better - at it than Bruce is. 

Just now, DaveSumm said:

It was a badly written line. They could have very easily tweaked it and the point would still stand just fine, but without the absurd exaggeration. 

It was fine, and showed a bit of rage herself. But yeah, if y'all are going to freak out about a bit of hyperbole you're kind of leaning into her point.

[john]

2 hours ago, sifth said:

I thought it was stupid as well, but as stated before I’ve grown use to the MCU, being lazy when it comes to their heroes controlling their powers. It’s one of the primary reasons I don’t enjoy most MCU films/shows; nothing ever feels earned. 

It’s not about controlling their powers though. It’s specifically about the transformation. Which is an issue for Bruce (or it used to be) because he turns into a different person who doesn’t want to turn back. Not so much an issue for Jen who just becomes green, stronger and turns back whenever she wants. The trade off should be that her Hulk is not quite as strong or as indestructible as Bruce’s but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.

1 hour ago, DaveSumm said:

It was a badly written line. They could have very easily tweaked it and the point would still stand just fine, but without the absurd exaggeration. 

It was fine, exactly the kind of thing you might say to your cousin who was giving you shit and trying to get you to do yoga for no reason.

[sifth]

1 hour ago, john said:

It’s not about controlling their powers though. It’s specifically about the transformation. Which is an issue for Bruce (or it used to be) because he turns into a different person who doesn’t want to turn back. Not so much an issue for Jen who just becomes green, stronger and turns back whenever she wants. The trade off should be that her Hulk is not quite as strong or as indestructible as Bruce’s but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.

Which is exactly why I call it lazy writing. No different from Dr. Strange being able to instantly control the Time Stone after reading a book for five minutes. This is pretty much becoming a very common thing, whenever the MCU does an origin story these days. They just don't like to show their heroes struggle at all, when learning how to control their powers. 

[Week]

No moar Mary Sues -- we demand training montages! Montages of montages! Montages of montages montaging! 

[sifth]

36 minutes ago, Week said:

No moar Mary Sues -- we demand training montages! Montages of montages! Montages of montages montaging! 

 

So heroes that don't struggle are more interesting to you? I personally love the Sam Raimi Spider Man films, because those powers made Peter Parker's life a living hell in those films.

[Kalbear]

28 minutes ago, sifth said:

 

So heroes that don't struggle are more interesting to you? I personally love the Sam Raimi Spider Man films, because those powers made Peter Parker's life a living hell in those films.

Dr strange has a whole sequence of massive struggle against better foes where he is saved largely because of a cape. Before that you see him going through a major training sequence for both the stone and general magic. And before that you see him even struggling to get into the monastery at all.

I don't get your argument at all here. Especially Dr. Strange, which has a ton of struggle to learn stuff in the actual movie.

[Week]

28 minutes ago, sifth said:

So heroes that don't struggle are more interesting to you? I personally love the Sam Raimi Spider Man films, because those powers made Peter Parker's life a living hell in those films.

None are particularly deep or interesting -- some thin veneer of legitimacy based of training/learning doesn't make the rest of the movie/show. Some benefit, some don't. It's really more the overall writing of the script that'll matter.

[sifth]

19 minutes ago, KalVsWade said:

Dr strange has a whole sequence of massive struggle against better foes where he is saved largely because of a cape. Before that you see him going through a major training sequence for both the stone and general magic. And before that you see him even struggling to get into the monastery at all.

I don't get your argument at all here. Especially Dr. Strange, which has a ton of struggle to learn stuff in the actual movie.

The only thing Strange struggles with is opening portals and even that he quickly is able to over come. Literally every other spell he learns in 5 seconds or less, from reading a book. Just like he does with the Time Stone.

[Week]

He definitely needs a long rest to regain spell slots too.

[Heartofice]

Of course the MCU is full of lazy writing. Dr Strange is seen as all powerful, and a natural genius at magic, but I’m not sure he is a good example of someone who doesn’t struggle with their powers, because he is maybe the most incompetent character in the entire MCU. Hard to think of anyone else who has continually made mistakes, got things wrong and generally caused disaster with their own actions, more than Dr Strange.

 

[john]

7 hours ago, sifth said:

Which is exactly why I call it lazy writing. No different from Dr. Strange being able to instantly control the Time Stone after reading a book for five minutes. This is pretty much becoming a very common thing, whenever the MCU does an origin story these days. They just don't like to show their heroes struggle at all, when learning how to control their powers. 

That doesn’t sound right. Moon Knight and Ms Marvel, the last things they put out, were all about the characters mastering their powers. Then you go all the way back to the beginning and the whole Iron Man movie is about that, he even uses a mistake he made early on to beat the bad guy in the end. They also did a whole movie where Bruce couldn’t turn into the Hulk.

Anyway, her power isn’t really turning into the Hulk, her power is being strong, probably she will struggle with that somehow. And, like mormont said upthread, there’s also a good chance they’ll have her regret being so casual about controlling her anger.

[mormont]

9 hours ago, john said:

The trade off should be that her Hulk is not quite as strong or as indestructible as Bruce’s but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.

No, she is definitely less strong. The rock throwing scene makes clear she's not in Bruce's class there.

Anyway, the start and end to this discussion should be reading any Hulk comic ever published. The entire point of the character, the core concept, is that the Hulk is Bruce's repressed rage, bursting out constantly, whatever he does to control it. He can never be free of that rage. At best he gets the occasional temporary reprieve.

Whereas, to repeat, the core concept of the She-Hulk character - well, to be honest, the core concept was 'we need to protect this trademark', but for decades the core concept of She-Hulk was that becoming a Hulk was empowering and liberating for Jen. She has had storylines on occasion where she has to deal with rage but they're very much the exception and not the rule. Generally she is in control.

The series has chosen to honour that statuis quo for both characters with a line that reflects an important truth about our society. And some people have chosen to make their number one takeaway from an hour of TV that they didn't like that one line. Choices were made.

[Heartofice]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

And some people have chosen to make their number one takeaway from an hour of TV that they didn't like that one line. Choices were made.

Obvs aimed at me. 

So this wasn't my one takeaway from the show, but it's a pretty good illustration of the major weakness of the show, and possible a weakness of other Marvel / Disney properties. That being that they have real issues writing female characters in interesting ways. As I said it's not entirely clear whether the intention is to write Jennifer as an obnoxious self important, arrogant character, or whether the writers think she is just being 'cool' and a Queen. The aforementioned scene isn't the only occasion where she behaves with such an extreme lack of self awareness, but it's maybe the most egregious. 

A well written character can be flawed, should be flawed, and those flaws should be part of their journey into learning and growing into a better person. Does the show actually realise Jennifer is flawed, or does it think her behaviour is a positive and so there is no reason to grow? We will see. I suspect the show is so intent on doing 'female empowerment' that it won't bother with any of that stuff. 

We've seen it before with Captain Marvel, who had virtually no weaknesses, didn't really learn anything, didn't grow, was a bit of a dick to people but it wasn't seen as a flaw, seemingly because that how you write female empowerment (I mean it even had the same catcall scene as She-hulk, how lazy is that?!) 

And yeah, I'm not gonna deny the woke shit in the MCU is something I notice and think is pretty annoying, I said in another thread that I'm sure for people who are pretty woke themselves that it is so normal that even questioning it seems baffling, but otherwise it's very jarring, especially when it's coupled with bad writing that completely wrecks a character or storyline. 

Anyway, I'll watch another couple of episodes, maybe hate watch it, because I really am curious to see whether this show is aware of what it's doing or not.

 

[sifth]

5 hours ago, john said:

That doesn’t sound right. Moon Knight and Ms Marvel, the last things they put out, were all about the characters mastering their powers. Then you go all the way back to the beginning and the whole Iron Man movie is about that, he even uses a mistake he made early on to beat the bad guy in the end. They also did a whole movie where Bruce couldn’t turn into the Hulk.

Truth be told I rather liked Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel was a real shock to be honest. I didn't find them particularity great, but I felt their climaxes were earned however. Also Iron Man is a prime example of doing an origin story right; there is a reason why that movie is so well loved. He struggled, had many, MANY, failed attempts at creating his suit and heck he was even able to use one of his failures earlier in the movie, to help beat the villain. "How did you compensate for the freeze", such a great line.

[john]

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Anyway, I'll watch another couple of episodes, maybe hate watch it, because I really am curious to see whether this show is aware of what it's doing or not.

When you watch the couple of episodes and inevitably Jen does not come to a sudden realisation that she is obnoxious and self important do you think you will feel disappointed or will you feel smug?

[Heartofice]

14 minutes ago, john said:

When you watch the couple of episodes and inevitably Jen does not come to a sudden realisation that she is obnoxious and self important do you think you will feel disappointed or will you feel smug?

IF it does happen, and it's really not clear it will happen, then great, I'll be happy and the show will be a bit better in my eyes. Does it mean that the show is aware of what it's saying, who knows. But I'll be glad if the show does add growth to Jen and doesn't imagine that her current form is meant to be likable.

edit, I mean if she does realise she's a knob.

If she doesn't then yeah I'm going to be very smug thanks.

[Winterfell is Burning]

5 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Of course the MCU is full of lazy writing. Dr Strange is seen as all powerful, and a natural genius at magic, but I’m not sure he is a good example of someone who doesn’t struggle with their powers, because he is maybe the most incompetent character in the entire MCU. Hard to think of anyone else who has continually made mistakes, got things wrong and generally caused disaster with their own actions, more than Dr Strange.

 

Huh...Tony Stark?

But yeah, I agree that generally speaking Marvel has some problems in writing female characters because of fear of criticism. For example, Carol Danvers in the comics struggled with alcoholism (like Tony actually, who was later her sponsor at AA), there's not a chance in hell that something like that would happen in the MCU.