Tuesday, February 22, 2022

We comic books fans are very resistant to placing comics in Box Four...

We comic book fans are very resistant to placing comics in Box Four ("it's just a story") and very inclined to treating all our beloved characters as inhabiting Box Three ("it's an actual universe which just happens not to exist".)

There is no shame in this. It can be great fun. Some Sherlock Holmes fans like to pretend that the stories really are Doctor Watson's write-ups of real cases which a real detective really solved. It's a fine scholarly game and it's been going on for more than a hundred years. I myself had a great time pretending that the early issues of Spider-Man were historical texts: looking at maps of New York and Greyhound bus-timetables, checking up what things cost in the 1960s and working out, to within a few days either way, the precise date on which Spider-Man was trapped under the wreckage of Doctor Octopus's underwater base. 

Sometimes this illuminated the story in interesting ways; usually it didn’t. I did a similar thing with the text of Mark's Gospel and a Google map of the Holy Land, with similarly patchy results. But I knew perfectly well I was playing a game, and quite a silly one. So do all Sherlockians and most comic-book readers. New Testament scholars I would not vouch for. 

"How could Spider-Man possibly have web-swung from Forest Hills to Madison Avenue in three minutes" is a perfectly good question. "Maybe he can swing at 200 miles per hour" is one perfectly good answer. (That's presumably why he arrives at the scene of the crime just in time like a streak of light.)  "Perhaps he bumped into the Human Torch and hitched a lift" is another perfectly good answer. "I think I will write a piece of fan fiction about what happened while Spidey was in the back seat of Johnny's segment of the Fantasticar" is no more pointless than anything else which human beings spend their time on. 

"Stan Lee isn't remotely interested in travel times" is a third perfectly good way of answering the  question. It has the virtue of almost certainly being true: Lee sometimes forgets that the Bugle is meant to be in Manhattan and that Peter is meant to lives in Queens. Indeed, he sometimes writes as if New York is a very small village where everyone knows everyone else. But "Stan Lee doesn't care" is a different kind of answer from the other two. Shelockians would say that it was Doylist rather than Watsonian. When you are reading a story, you kind of have to be Watsonian. When you are writing smart essays about it on the Internet, you can afford to be a Doylist. It is probably unwise to be both at the same time. 

Most of the time, most readers are quite happy to say "Spider-Man travelled from some place, to some other place, in the amount of time it was narratively appropriate for him to take and not a minute more.” But just occasionally -- as when the Angel seems to be able to fly across the Atlantic in ten minutes, or Shang Chi sees thatched cottages and taverns at the edge of Trafalgar Square -- our ability to suspend disbelief evaporates. 

Why can't I say "Spider-Man didn't cross New York in three minutes; that never happened; we can cross that bit out; it's just a story"? Because if I do, then I have admitted the possibility that the Burglar didn't kill Uncle Ben. And the fight with the Sinister Six never happened. And that we can cross out the bit where Doctor Octopus unmasked him. And the underwater base is just a story. If one thing isn't true, then maybe nothing is true. And if we admit that we can no longer play the great game. 

This applies to more serious matters as well. If maybe-possibly-perhaps Saint Matthew made up the story of baby Jesus and the star and the wizards to make a theological point then maybe-possibly-perhaps he made up everything else as well. If we admit that Jonah and the Whale is maybe-possibly-perhaps an Imaginary Tale, we might have to entertain the possibility that maybe-possibly-perhaps God is also an Imaginary Tale; in which case there would be no point in reading any of the stories ever again. Unless you think that stories have points in themselves. 

This is why there are YouTube videos of angry Americans who believe that dragons exist, dinosaurs do not, and that the rotundity of the earth is an elaborate hoax.

*

There is probably a very good piece of fan-fiction to be written about how Tolkien discovered the Red Book. I imagine that Ronald would be a kind of literary Indiana Jones, running all around Europe with his faithful companion Jack and his clever kid-sidekick Chris; chased by orc-worshipping occultists and Blue Wizard initiates, collecting precious MSS and bringing them back to the Bodelian where they can  be properly translated. The Space Traveller in Out of the Silent Planet is a philologist, fairly obviously meant to be Tolkien, and the book ends with a classic Box Three framing sequence in which C.S Lewis says that he is presenting real events as if they were fictional in order to get humans used to the idea that there are alien angels on Mars. The preface to Lord of the Rings strongly implies that a small number of very well hidden Hobbits and diminished Elves still survive in our own Seventh Age. Tolkien knew Lewis and Lewis met Yeats and Yeats new Crowley and Williams was an initiate of the Order of the Golden Dawn. If I had the slightest talent for fiction, I might try to write it myself. 

But Tolkien himself doesn't really go in for that sort of thing. The Red Book is something he takes for granted in order to give himself a viewpoint. The unfinished Book of Lost Tales -- what eventually became the Silmarillion --  did have a frame narrative about an Anglo Saxon sailor who travelled to what was still called Fairyland and learned the history of what were still called the Gnomes. And what became the Second Age of Middle-earth was introduced in an unfinished Time Travel story about a modern-day father and son who had inherited a kind of psychic race memory linking them with ancient Numenor. There may even have been a fortnight when Tolkien and C.S. Lewis intended their various stories to cohere into an Inklingverse. The Merlin of That Hideous Strength claims to know the magical traditions of a place called Numinor [sic]. These framing devices are largely missing from the Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings and the published Silmarillion. Christopher Tolkien infers, correctly I think, that the viewpoint of the Silmarillion is "the tales that Bilbo heard in Rivendell". 

But Tolkien always takes it for granted that his stories are to be read as Box Three artefacts. They are not Just Stories: we are to pretend that they are historical fictions based on primary texts. Books about the real world, set in an imaginary time, was one way he explained it. He maintains a -- so to speak -- Watsonian perspective even when he is writing informally or making notes for his own benefit. He never looks at an inconsistency and says "I wrote that wrong, I'll have to change it". He is more inclined to say "There are two distinct traditions" or to write a fresh text explaining how the apparent contradiction arose. Asked by a fan why Gollum thought that the Ring was a birthday present given that Hobbits don’t receive presents on their birthdays he improvised a long riff about the different gift-giving customs among the different tribes.

This maybe why some people find Christopher Tolkien so hard to take. Any illusion that Middle-earth is really, really real is thoroughly dispersed by the Twelve Volume History. What we thought of as fixed chronology turns into something contingent and unstable; a set of ideas that Tolkien was constantly changing and erasing and literally overwriting. Your respect for Tolkien the artist increases. Your secondary belief in Middle-earth takes quite a battering.

The trailers for the forthcoming Second Age TV series appear to indicate that there will be elves of colour and possibly Asian hobbits. The racists are out in force, saying that this is not true to Tolkien's vision. To which the only possible answer is "Which vision?"

*

There is a certain species of fan who feels that a story only matters in so far as it can be located in Box Three. Watsonian readings are the only ones which matter. A story is part of a sub-created world or else it is nothing. Marvel Comics are there to provide us with information about what happened in the Marvel Universe as opposed to entertaining us with unlikely yarns about people who wear their underwear on the outside. 

The Story of Superman Red and Superman Blue is, by common consent, delightful. What If The Avengers Had Fought The Kree/Skrull War Without Rick Jones is fairly obscure. But "being delightful" is not what puts a story in Box Three. Nor is self-consistency, good-story-telling or having something to say about the real world. A story goes into Box Three if the writer or the editor or the show runner or J.K Rowling says that it can go into Box Three.

In fandom, as in religion, that is pretty much what Canon means: a text which some person in authority has approved of.

Why is that book part of the Canon? 

Because the Canon-Keeper says so.

Who is the Canon-Keeper? 

The person who decides which books are part of the Canon. 

Only the showrunner, or the editor, or the Holcron Keeper can move a text from Box Four to Box Three. And once they have done so, they cannot be gainsaid. A story really happened if Stan or Roy or Mark or George or Kathleen says it really happened. No other considerations apply. The silly in-joke about the eleven faces of Doctor Who in Brain of Morbius is irrevocable canon because Chris Chibnall says so. 

To believe in Canon is to believe in the absolute primacy of Authorial Intention. Your job as reader is to read the text in the way that the author tells you to read it. 

In Chaucer's English, the word Author and Authority were the same word. 

I could read the 1993 Death of Superman story as if it were an imaginary tale, if I wanted to. And I could read the 1965 imaginary story with the same title as if it was canonical. There are as many head canons as there are heads. Frank Miller once half-seriously remarked that so far as he was concerned, after Daredevil 191 Matt Murdoch went home and quit crime fighting: all the subsequent episodes were "imaginary". I myself have said that I think that Steve Ditko intended The Final Chapter to be the end of the story of Spider-Man: that having purged himself of his guilt, Peter Parker quit being a superhero and concentrated on taking care of Aunt May and studying science. But a label which says "This is an imaginary story..." is a pretty clear instruction from the writer that we readers are not allowed to treat the story as canonical. A caption which says "Not a dream! Not a hoax!" is a pretty clear instruction to read it as if it teally happened. 

I can ignore the rubrics. But once you have denied the authority of the Canon Keeper you have, I think, denied the existence of Canon. And that might be a perfectly sensible thing to say. "I don't care if a particular sub-set of Spider-Man stories make up the true story of Spider-Man. I just see a lot of comics, cartoons, and movies. Some of them I enjoy. Other's not so much."

You are perfectly free to say "I don't agree with the Pope on this one. In my Head Canon, Thomas is part of the New Testament and there are Four Persons in the Trinity." But not, I think, to say that and still think of yourself as a Roman Catholic. 


27 comments:

SK said...

Why is that book part of the Canon?

Oh no. Not again.

I fought in the Canon Wars, you know. EDAs on fire outside the Fitzroy Tavern… I watched Big Finish disks glitter in the dark to seal Faction Paradox's fate.

The hill on which I made my stand was that there is no logical connection between canonicity and consistency. Being 'in the canon' means only that the authority (the BBC, say) has officially recognised it. It doesn't mean that it has to be consistent with all other things that are also in the canon. Three stories in the canon can all give different, mutually exclusive versions of the final end of the Dalek race, or of the destruction of Atlantis, and that doesn't mean that only one of them can be 'in the canon' and the others either have to have the inconsistencies explained away or be ejected from the canon (but they can't be ejected from the canon, because they have been recognised as such by the authority).

That a canon contains contradictions does not stop it being a valid canon. All being in the canon means is that something has been officially recognised: no more, no less.

(I also maintain that the best way to understand Doctor Who is to assume that every single story takes place in a completely separate fictional universe which is visited by the Doctor and his friends only once and then left behind forever at the end of the story's final episode, and the TARDIS is a storytelling device for traveling between fictional universes).

How this relates to comic books, I have no idea.

Andrew Ducker said...

I cannot emotionally engage with a story if I am simultaneously thinking "This is a story". I have to be, on some level, emotionally tricked into thinking of the people in it as if they are real people. I don't feel sad because "The writer has made up a story about a sad thing happening", I feel sad because "A sad thing happened" - and it happened to happen in a story.

I can then, later on, think about the story, and quibble about details, and think about how it was made, and the choices behind it, and what the writer was trying to say. But if I am doing any of those things (or the hundreds of other things that make up critical thought) while I am experiencing the story, then I am not engaging with it fully emotionally. And this is, I think, a disservice to the story, the creators, and to myself.

This is, by the way, why I stopped reviewing movies after doing so for a solid year. About 9 months in I started finding myself writing the review while the movie was still playing. And this meant that I was no longer actually enjoying the movie as itself, but instead as an input into the review-writing/thinking process, which just wasn't nearly as good a way of experiencing it.

SK said...

One thing that really confuses me is when people make complaints about certain superhero film series along the lines of, 'in film X a massive global catastrophe occurred that would have traumatised everyone, but then in film Y which supposedly takes place in the same world, just afterwards, everyone is acting like normal and not wandering around like shell-shocked zombies like they would be if this had really happened.'

I mean — have you ever read a comic book? They are for kids. That sort of thing happens all the time. Something huge happens, and then by the next issue the status quo has been restored and everything's back to normal.

I mean, these are movies for kids. Based on comic books for kids. Complaining that they don't deal with the realistic emotional consequences of what happens is like complaining that Big Bad Wolves can't really pretend to be grandmothers. If you want a film that deals properly with heavy, realistic emotional issues like, I don't know, giant robots levitating cities, watch a film for adults, not one where the target audience is twelve-year-olds and people with the emotional maturity of twelve-year-olds and then complain that thiings are dealt with on the level of twelve-year-olds.

I think superhero films are invariably shit. I therefore simply do not watch them.

Andrew Ducker said...

I enjoy superhero films (sometimes), but otherwise I agree with SK. We need to accept that almost all creations exist inside certain boundaries, and if our questions get into "But why didn't the story cross the boundary" then you either need to go find a different story with different boundaries, or accept the boundaries this story has.

SK said...

Another thing I remember seeing is someone point out that there's probably no more than two hundred issues worth of stories you can tell about any individual superhero. Which is probably true. But does that mean that every superhero comic book should be retired after about fifteen years? Of course not! Because the people reading your superhero comic now should not be the same people who were reading it fifteen years ago, so you can recycle stories! (I don't mean just redraw the same scripts — though you could do that — but you can re-use the same themes, characters, concepts, and plots) And if the stories were good for kids of a given age fifteen years ago, they will be good for kids who are that age now, and if someone is still reading your superhero comic book fifteen or twenty years after they started then there is something seriously wrong with them, and you should not listen to anything they say, you should be writing stories for the new people who are now the age they were when they started reading your comic book.

Andrew Rilstone said...

Clearly, not all superhero films and not all superhero comics are for kids. Equally clearly, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has worked fairly hard to deal with the aftermath of Thanos -- characters having PTSD counselling, etc. Equally clearly, this is a blog by a writer who takes comic books and superhero movies fairly seriously, although with a healthy dose of skepticism about the absurdity of doing that. Doctor Who is arguably a kids show and arguably shit as well. And Star Wars. Dammit, Liz, your laughing at my life. If you don't think genre fiction is worth thinking about, which arguably it isn't, then I am not sure what you are doing here.

SK said...

If you don't think genre fiction is worth thinking about, which arguably it isn't, then I am not sure what you are doing here.

Why on Earth would the fact that stories are for kids make those stories not worth thinking about?

SK said...

I mean, I found the close readings of Spider-Man fascinating as a close reading analysis, despite having absolutely no interest whatsoever in the actual subject matter.

Andrew Rilstone said...

I think it was possibly the use of the word "shit" that made me think you didn't value it very highly.

SK said...

I think it was possibly the use of the word "shit" that made me think you didn't value it very highly.

That was specifically a quality judgement, not at all judgement over whether something is worth thinking about. The two are at best only tangentially related. Even if something is rubbish, that doesn't mean that an analysis of it can't be highly fascinating.

(And in context, it was meant to be a criticism of people who complain at length about superhero films for not being what they think they ought to be, rather than either engaging with what they are, or just ignoring them — the sorts of people who order curry and then complain that it's not fishy and chippy enough. Something you have never been guilty of.)

Nick M said...

"the sorts of people who order curry and then complain that it's not fishy and chippy enough"

Well quite

On the other hand, if someone were to order curry and complain that it was undercooked or tasted off for some reason or wasn't spicy enough, I don't think that 'Well curry is a shit food, what are you expecting?"

I don't think 'Superhero comics are for kids, kids are not emotionally mature enough to deal with consequences, therefore it's silly to complain how superhero comics and films don't deal realistically with consequences' is as axiomatic as you claim. Even Harry Potter does attempt to deal with consequences...if Voldemort returns at the end of one book and is seen only by Potter then the next book will deal with Potter reacting to this accordingly and being treated as something of a pariah for being an alarmist. And yes, I think that the MCU does attempt to deal with what would realistically happen in the aftermath of Thanos and, as such, I think it's a legitimate question to ask 'does it do it realistically enough?" whereas 'Would Thor realistically be able to fly like that?' isn't a legitimate question.

SK said...

I don't think 'Superhero comics are for kids, kids are not emotionally mature enough to deal with consequences, therefore it's silly to complain how superhero comics and films don't deal realistically with consequences' is as axiomatic as you claim.

That's weird because I never claimed that. If I were to boil it down, it would be more like 'Superhero comics are for kids, kids find lots of stuff dealing with emotional consequences boring and would much rather get to the next bit of tense dramatic tension or bangy-smashy-things-blowing-up action, therefore it's silly to complain how superhero comics and films don't deal realistically with consequences'.

Even Harry Potter does attempt to deal with consequences...if Voldemort returns at the end of one book and is seen only by Potter then the next book will deal with Potter reacting to this accordingly and being treated as something of a pariah for being an alarmist

Yes: because Potter trying to convince people that there's danger while people try to shut him down is dramatic. Potter whinging for page and pages about how Voldemort's return makes him feel is boring (at least for kids). Hence the kid's books in which the Potter character appears do the former and not the latter (at least until the later, more boring books, and, well, you can see how well that goes down because those are nobody's favourites), and complaining that they don't do the latter is to miss the point.

< And yes, I think that the MCU does attempt to deal with what would realistically happen in the aftermath of Thanos and, as such, I think it's a legitimate question to ask 'does it do it realistically enough?"

Well then you're wrong. Because the point of superhero films is to provide big explosions, funny quips, lots of destruction of landscape and property (with implausibly few bystanders getting hurt), and larger-than-life, Wagnerian characters with bombastic but simple dilemmas to overcome.

And dealing realistically with the aftermath of things like 'what would happen if a massive space-giant appeared and slammed the moon into the Earth' would just get in the way of that. Who wants to watch a film about the supply chains sorting themselves out after a superhero fight blocks the Suez canal? Well, some people, probably but not many of the same people who would want to watch the film where the canal gets blocked, or the next film where some other significant landmark gets blown up in a haze of CGI pixels. Hence: superhero films are all about the blowing-up, and not about the 'but how did that gets rebuilt' — the rebuilding happens off-screen, between panels, or between films, and you just accept that in order to get some more blowing-up next time.

And to complain about that is silly because you'd be asking the films to be something that would turn off a large proportion of their audience and obviously they're not going to do that.

SK said...

On the other hand, if someone were to order curry and complain that it was undercooked or tasted off for some reason or wasn't spicy enough, I don't think that 'Well curry is a shit food, what are you expecting?"

Well yes. Something can be well-made or badly-made, and there are certainly well-made and badly-made superhero films. Even I can see that.

I think that even the well-made ones are still shit because, well, basically because they all follow exactly the same storytelling formula, which was okay when they were rare novelties — I went to see the first Spider-Man film and it was new and different and stood out in tone and just general aesthetic from all the other films being made at the time — but just tiresome when every other film has exactly the same structure and story, and the only differences are superficial glosses of what super-powers the hero has or what particular psychological issue they have to overcome just before the big CGI fight at the end or what

But while I might, if I ever accidentally saw a superhero film, criticise it if it were a badly-made superhero film — if the effects were bad, or the direction was muddled, or the quips weren't funny — I wouldn't criticise it because it had a plot exactly the same as every other of millions of superhero films, because that's what it's trying to do. If it has that plot it has succeeded in its aim.

So does that explain your curry analogy? You can have well-made curry or badly-made curry. The difference is that what curry is trying to be isn't fundamentally rubbish, whereas superhero films are aiming to produce more content that exactly fits a defined formula for the consumption of people who want more of that exact formula, and that is fundamentally rubbish. But they can still be well-made or badly-made in regards to both their general characteristics and how well they manage to fit the formula.

SK said...

just before the big CGI fight at the end or what

… or what apparently noble but ultimately misguided ideal motivates the one-dimensional bad guy.

Andrew Rilstone said...

I think that even the well-made ones are still shit because, well, basically because they all follow exactly the same storytelling formula,

This is not true.

— but just tiresome when every other film has exactly the same structure and story, and the only differences are superficial glosses of what super-powers the hero has or what particular psychological issue they have to overcome just before the big CGI fight at the end or what

This is not true.

I wouldn't criticise it because it had a plot exactly the same as every other of millions of superhero films, because that's what it's trying to do. If it has that plot it has succeeded in its aim.

This is not true.

superhero films are aiming to produce more content that exactly fits a defined formula for the consumption of people who want more of that exact formula

This is not true.

and that is fundamentally rubbish.

This is not true.

Andrew Rilstone said...

"Ess effs no good, they below til we're deaf"
"But this is good"
"Well then, it's not Ess Eff."

SK said...

This is not true.

Well, I guess it may not be true now but it was certainly true when I stoped watching superhero films (after the second Thor film) because of it (exception made for the Avengers Assemble trilogy-of-four-parts because if I have watched parts one and two of something I cannot not watch parts three and four, obviously, no matter how bad it is (it's an illness) but they again were shit and again had exactly the same formula).

Nothing I've heard about the films I haven't watched in the meantime has suggested to me that things have changed though.

Andrew Rilstone said...

but they again were shit

This is not true.

and again had exactly the same formula

This is not true.

Aonghus Fallon said...

A couple of thoughts struck me, reading this exchange -

vFor kids? I would reckon teenagers rather than pre-teens. And that’s a very different demographic.

Realistic? I think Batman is a good example of a story that’s been told multiple times and in which the aesthetic has been quite different on each occasion. It’s still reasonable to expect the director to be true to his intentions regardless - to how he tells his version of the story. So the TV series was arch and zany (and had an obligation to continue being so) whereas Nolan’s more ‘realistic’ batman had to be more realistic.

Curry? I’d agree with SK’s analogy to food, but would argue that MC are in the business of making Marvel films, just as Burgerking are in the business of making Double Bacon Cheeseburgers. I don’t think Marvel films are universally shit - some are pretty good - but yeah, I think there’s a basic template. So what? You could say the same about Sherlock Holmes or Father Brown.

But….

These films all revolve around an individual being empowered in some way, and this is presented as an essentially positive thing. Now I can see why such fantasies might appeal to a teenager (who is essentially powerless) but also how the same stories are more problematic when aimed at an adult audience.* Basically, they endorse a certain kind of mindset; the same mindset that supports gun ownership (‘If I had a gun, I’d only ever use it for good’ etc, etc) and which believes in the primacy of the individual over the state.

As usual, context is everything.

* something compounded by the sheer volume and dominance of superhero movies.

SK said...

This is not true.

Now you've descended to, 'who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?'

I would reckon teenagers rather than pre-teens.

Yes. Teenagers. Kids.

You could say the same about Sherlock Holmes or Father Brown.

And I do.

These films all revolve around an individual being empowered in some way, and this is presented as an essentially positive thing. Now I can see why such fantasies might appeal to a teenager (who is essentially powerless) but also how the same stories are more problematic when aimed at an adult audience.* Basically, they endorse a certain kind of mindset; the same mindset that supports gun ownership (‘If I had a gun, I’d only ever use it for good’ etc, etc) and

Now you're doing the same thing, of criticising them for being what they inevitably are. If you don't like that sort of mindset, just don't watch the films. Don't watch superhero films and then criticise them for being based around a mindset that, if they abandoned, would mean they stopped being superhero films and become some other type of film altogether.

which believes in the primacy of the individual over the state.

'If individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a nation, or a civilisation, which may last for a thousand years, is more important than an individual. But if Christianity is true, then the individual is not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is ever-lasting and the life of a state or a civilisation, compared with his, is only a moment.'

Aonghus Fallon said...

If you don't like that sort of mindset, just don't watch the films.*

Maybe I’m not being entirely clear. You can like The Simpsons, and still dislike people who regard The Simpsons as holy writ and Bart as some sort a role model. And Western Society is predicated on the primacy of the individual. I was talking specifically about law enforcement. If I had to choose between a police force employed by the state and constrained by law and some guy sticking a gun in his back pocket and prowling about in my neighbourhood as a self-appointed ‘enforcer’, then I’d choose the former without hesitation.

* Is this advice intended for you or me? I’m confused (I thought you said all superhero movies were shit).

SK said...

If I had to choose between a police force employed by the state and constrained by law and some guy sticking a gun in his back pocket and prowling about in my neighbourhood as a self-appointed ‘enforcer’, then I’d choose the former without hesitation.


Well, that wasn't clear. No, indeed, I agree with you, defunding the state police and establishing 'Autonomous Zones' policed by armed gangs of thugs are terrible ideas, and so obviously so that one wonders why the Yanks feel the need to keep proving it in practice.

Is this advice intended for you or me? I’m confused (I thought you said all superhero movies were shit).

It's intended for the people (and they exist, I've read them on the inter-net) who unfailingly watch every single superhero film that comes out, and then loudly make the exact same complaints about every single one.

I mean at some point you have to stop doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, right?

Aonghus Fallon said...

Well, that wasn't clear.

I guess I was drawing a corollory between superhero films (e.g. Batman) and real-life vigilantes, as one can be interpreted as an endorsement of the other. And I'd agree about people who complain about the deficiencies of the genre - you might as well religiously attend boyband concerts then complain loudly about them in your local pub.

Thor is an interesting exception to the genre, as it's about a superhero who loses his superpowers and learns what it's like to be an ordinary human being (usually it's the other way round).

SK said...

I guess I was drawing a corollory between superhero films (e.g. Batman) and real-life vigilantes, as one can be interpreted as an endorsement of the other.

Well, I guess — if you're incapable of distinguishing fiction from reality.

Thor is an interesting exception to the genre, as it's about a superhero who loses his superpowers and learns what it's like to be an ordinary human being

Nope, it has exactly the same plot structure as all the others. This point isn't that he loses his superpowers, it's that the inciting incident exposes his psychological flaws and shakes his confidence (this is the beginning of all superhero films, in origin films it comes a bit later as there's the 'gets powers' bit first whereas in later films it tends to open with them being super-heroic and then immediately they hit the Exposing of Psychological Problem); the hero / heroine then spends the rest of the film Learning To Be A Better Person before finally Putting The Lesson They Learnt To Use, and then there's a big CGI fight that goes on far too long.

The only difference with Thor is that although it's the first film with Thor it isn't an origin story, so it goes straight to the Knock Of Confidence (just like Thor 2 does, and just like, I dare say, though I haven't seen them, Thor 3, Thor 4, Thor 5 and Thor 6 also do).

Aonghus Fallon said...

Well, I guess — if you're incapable of distinguishing fiction from reality.

Distinguishing between fiction and reality? You mean between what is ethically appropriate and what isn't? Keep in mind that morality is highly subjective - e.g. the death penalty is a reality in the US. Not so much in the US.

Nope, it has exactly the same plot structure as all the others.

I wasn't talking about plot - like you say, the arc is the exact same as others - but how the character followed that arc (by losing his super-powers rather than gaining them).

SK said...

Distinguishing between fiction and reality? You mean between what is ethically appropriate and what isn't?

No, I mean distinguishing between fiction and reality. Like horse lots of things that make great fiction would be a very bad idea to do in real life, for multitudinous reasons. Nuclear war, for a random example.

Keep in mind that morality is highly subjective

No it isn’t. But perhaps we should try to limit ourselves to one huge unresolved philosophical question per web page.

I wasn't talking about plot - like you say, the arc is the exact same as others - but how the character followed that arc (by losing his super-powers rather than gaining them).

Was there not a film about the Spider-Man where her lost his superpowers? Must have been film two or three as it wasn't film one and that’s all I watched.

SK said...

Like horse lots of things

… how lots of things…

where her lost his superpowers

…he lost his…

Must have been film two or three as it wasn't film one and that’s all I watched.

I mean, I watched films one two and three and I vaguely remember it so it must have been one of those rather than in film five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten or eleven. Unless they did it again. Wouldn't put it past them. I hear they did the whole of film one again, twice.