Before we dive in, here's another show you can enjoy in the True Story FM Family of Entertainment podcasts.
Ever wondered what happens when a Zoomer who grew up on the Clone.
Wars, millennial, Anakin Defender.
And a grumpy old gen Xer walking to a canteen and at talk Star Wars.
Then we've got the podcast for you.
Star Wars Generations is a place for fans of all backgrounds to come together talk about what we love the franchise and what we can learn from each other.
With so much new Star Wars content coming out, we take a deep dive into all of it. We talk stories and characters, what we learned about the Force and the Empire, Republics old and new, and how each story adds to the larger picture.
Besides episode by episode coverage of the new shows, we've been going.
Back to watch the movies and release order.
We talk about Star Wars novels and video games, along with fam content and cosplay.
And with each episode, we're just starting the conversation and we hope you jump in. We'll read your feedback, answer your questions. We've had full episodes dedicated to questions and raised by listeners.
Like you find us under Star Wars Generations on your favorite podcast app or by going to the Ethical Pana dot com. May the Force be with you Now, this is podcasting.
Hey, there are true believers. Andy Nelson here from the Marvel Movie Minute Podcast with the rest of the team mate right, Kyle Wilson, Rob Cobosco, and Matthew Fox. This is the podcast where we dissect the Marvel cinematic universe, one minute at a time, exploring every detail of this epic superhero franchise.
In our season, looking at Ironman three, we're gonna mix things up a bit.
That's right.
Rob and I are your guide, but instead of our usual minute by minute format, we dive into five minutes of the film in each weekly episode.
It's a totally new approach, but one that still allows us to explore all the depth and detail that makes these movies so special, even if Ironman three isn't all that's special. Hold on, that's where you're wrong, extremists. Shane Black, Yeah, would you like to look at the Mandarin and Maya Hanson?
So, whether you're a die hard Marvel fan or just love deep dives into movies, there's something for everyone on Marvel Movie Minute.
Suit up and join us on this epic audio adventure. You can find us a true story dot FM or by searching Marvelmovie Minute on your favorite podcatcher.
Because in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, every minute is packed with excitement.
Enough said, Hello and welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics.
Today, we're kicking off something we've been talking about doing for far too long, our special members only series on the fundamental ethical questions that come up all the time in Superhero Ethics. Now, if you're listening to this and you're not a member, you're probably thinking what's going on. Because this is the first one of these episodes we're doing, we wanted to make it available for everyone to give you a taste of the kind of content that our
members is going to get going forward. We're going to keep doing all of our awesome week to week episodes, but once a month, we're going to take a special time to step back from talking about one specific movie or TV show or thing, or even one specific, like very specific question and look at what are the kind of general questions that come up again and again and again as we look at superhero media along with all the other kind of genre media that have we've expanded
that to include such as sci fi, fantasy, chess and kids, karate and all the like. And because on these topics, Because on these topics, we are going to be talking about all the things that we love to talk about. Here on Superhero Ethics, we are going to be talking specifically about superheroes quite a lot. To really help kick us off, I've brought back comic book expert Extraordinaire Jessica Plumber. Jessica, how are you doing today?
I'm doing good.
How are you good? I'm good? So really, thank you so much. You've been giving so much your time to the show. I've not figured out exactly how much of Jessica's time and going to dragoon once the Daredevil show comes out, but we will definitely be having Jessica on for a couple episodes around that time, so I really
looking forward to that. Today, we're talking about one that I think goes to the heart of so many of the things we've talked about, which is the idea of vengeance and the role that vengeance plays in our superhero
and science fiction media like that. And we're talking about vengeance as a motivation for a hero, for a motivation for a villain or an anti hero, the role, how we think about it, and things like that, and in further framing the discussion we're about to have and why we chose vengeance for this particular month, I think it's important that I kind of take a step back and talk about like why we like doing especially I like doing this question this topic of superhero ethics, And part
of it's because for me, like these are kind of fun trolley problems talking about you know, like, well, you know, what do you do with a superpowered person and the jail system or you know, kind of person with telepathy play poker? Like I mean, there are fun intellectual exercises.
But as I've said many times, what I love most about superheroes, about science fiction, about any of this kind of media is when it holds up a mirror to our own world, When it takes an issue from our own world and says, okay, well let's use the context of superheroes or something like that and change things, but still, you know, give you a chance to think about something
in a new way. For example, the way you know, the X Men comics have at times been a metaphor for racism or a metaphor for LGBT issues or things like that, depending on the different times it was used. So before we start talking about vengeance specifically, just kind of this general idea of these fundamental questions, what are other kind of questions that are of interest to you all or that you see coming up again and again in the media we talk about.
This is sort of related to today's topic. But one thing that I think about a lot is.
Who going to say?
Who gives superheroes permission to do what they do? That might not be the best way of framing it, but like what authority do they have? And is it okay that they're taking that authority on themselves? I think Civil War is a huge example of how that gets really messy.
But like.
There are plenty of stories where characters are going into countries that they are not citizens of and involving themselves in the politics and governance of those countries. Like do they have a right to do that? Do they have an obligation to do that? If there are human.
Rights violations at play?
Like there's these are big questions and there's a lot that we can talk about there.
For sure, For sure. Yeah.
I mean when we're talking about these things, there's a question of law, like whose laws, And even if we're just talking about human law, there are different countries. There are international organizations that are kind of conglomerates, like the United Nations, that decree things to be against the law, and yet you know, some people defy that, or some countries maybe are so powerful that no one can enforce
the laws is they are written right. And I think a similar thing comes up in especially in superhero media, because these beings are often so powerful that the humans are powerless against them, and it's like, well, you're doing stuff that is against the law, but we can't actually stop you. So I think it brings up a question of does the law matter? Like power makes right is a thing that comes up a lot in these situations.
And that's why like Superman, right, when there are evil versions of Superman, like an Injustice, He's like, I'm just going to make my own law, and people are like, well, guess that's it. We're for living in a dictatorship now, right.
Yeah. No, I think I think those are all great ones, and I think a lot of the you know, the questions of do we see superheroes as metaphor for law enforcements. Do we see them as metaphor for soldiers? Do we see them in something totally different? Ties into all that, Rikiana, you often talk about the idea of whether killing should be a part of superhero media or whether the importance of not non lethal violence being used, and I of course have questions about the viability of that.
Yeah, well for me, like it really comes down to the media neess of it. And this is like an anime. Why I love it so much is that Japanese anime is you know, is enjoyed by older people, but it's still always like with a mind towards the younger audience
and trying to teach certain fundamental lessons. So I really enjoy that an anime most well, I'll just say most of the protagonists don't kill, and that's like a very clear demarcation line between you know, the hero and the villain and the story, and I think it's an important lesson to draw from that media and to impart upon the audience.
Right well, and still thought of like ohole, Like I got really excited about this, but I'm just going to throw out the ethics of time travel which is not really relevant to us, but like, should you go back and change things or should you not go back and change things even if it means that a woman you love has to die, which.
Kind of seems like how that plot line always goes.
Number two when the villain goes, we're not so different you and I, which they always do. And number three does a superhero create super villains? And please have me on if you do that one, because so mad.
I think it's a really good one. You know, the vision line from Civil War of you know, do vite conflict and stuff like that, which is a really good one. And to me that those also tie into.
I mean, Matthew knows the time travel is Mike, Yeah, so I'll always I'll always talk about that time.
Yeah.
Well, I think it does create lots of questions, especially with the ideas of you know, when you have timelines, is like erasing a timeline? Are you killing the people in that? You know? And I think that comes up a lot with also things like AI you know, Ages of Shield, the great plot line. So yeah, all these kind of great questions and I think, and like you.
Were saying, very relevant to the real world.
Exactly the exactly one exactly so, you know, and and it's with that relevance to the real world is why I think we're talking about vengeance today. And I think for many people it's probably not a far grasp to find,
but just kind of spell it out. I think late last year, we had the killing of a healthcare CEO that brought up a lot of feelings for a lot of people about you know, how do we feel about you know, the healthcare industry, and a lot of people not really feeling too bad about this because of those feelings or praising the person who did that. And I think, you know, to be clear, we're not going to go
into a deep analysis of all that. I think I'm pretty confident in saying all of us say that, you know, murder is wrong, killing is wrong, but we also understand kind of the wealth of emotions that this has brought up for people. And I think for me, the reason why that's interesting for us today is that what we saw was an act of vigilanteism in the real world.
We saw an act of a punisher type of a person who has said, you know, for whatever reasons, like this is someone I decided was bad and I'm going to act on that kind of just go to what you were saying, like one person creating that own authority. And to me, my goal today isn't for us to
decide the ethics of that. It's that I want us to discuss how those ethical questions play out in the media we discussed, because I think that helps shape how we think about these things and how we Because for me, at least, I've always been kind of fascinated that there's a lot of revenge fantasy vengeance fantasy type things that I can find really enjoyable, even though sometimes I'd be goot horrified of it happening in our own world. And
so there's just so much there to play in. And there's got three fundamental questions I wanted us to get into today, and I was just gonna spell them out and go through them one by one, and the first being like, you know, how is vengeance a motivator for some of the characters we love? Why do we enjoy vengeance stories if we do, which I don't want to speak for all of us, I will admit that I do at times, and sometimes I'm troubled by that, sometimes
I'm not. And then lastly, like, what are the differences between what we can enjoy on screen and what we're okay with in real life, and how do those things blend into each other. So let me first just kind of start by it. Let's kind of just throw them things out. What are examples you see? And we can focus mostly on superhero comic book media specifically where vengeance is an important part of the story for a hero of villain and anti hero anyone like that, and I'll
throw out the Punisher. To me, the Punisher is a great example of there's often this kind of veneer of I'm doing this to make the world a better place, doing this to prevent these people from harming others. But also like Frank Cassel, you know, had his family killed and he was portrayed and he wants vengeance. What are other kind of examples do you guys see a lot or do you that think interesting?
Well, you and I just did Full Metal Alchemist slash Brotherhood, and the character of Scar who was the survivor of a massacre slash genocide coming to the nation that institute at that tragedy and taking vengeance upon people soldiers from that nation for that I think was one of the most interesting parts of that show, and he was a very fascinating character.
Yeah, I mean the Punisher is a big one for me. I feel like, if you scratch any superhero, you can find a story about vengeance, and it works for some of them better than others. And I have I have a lot of thoughts about vengeance as a structural tool and how.
Like the difficulties that it causes.
But the other thing that immediately came to mind was I don't know if either of you ever watched the TV show Revenge with Emily Van Camp from like fifteen years ago.
It was great.
My friends and I used to call it a revenge procedural. It's like very very loosely based on the Count of Money Cristo, but not really, and it's Emily Van Camp plays It's like what if the Count of Money Cristo was set in.
The Hampton's Fair And.
Emily Van Camp plays this woman who, like as a child, her father was framed for funding terrorists by these rich Hampton's people, and so she's come back to the Hamptons under a false name to destroy their lives systematically. And it was so over the top ridiculous and so much fun.
Well, and that point you just made I think actually ties into something you were saying a little bit ago wreaky about anime, and something I think we're gonna talk about a lot is that. I think, for me, at least, my feeling about how I view vengeance, particularly from a hero type, has a lot to do with how seriously I'm being asked to take it. And then sometimes I feel like the more ridiculous it is, the more over
the top it is. I've often talked about the movie Desperado, which I absolutely love, which is one a brutal murder spree for vengeance, but it's played so much for humor. You know, the the a guy gets shot and a criminal baddie gets killed because they shoot the ceiling fan that's above him and it hits him. And you see this, this shot of the fan continuing to go because the motor hasn't stopped, hitting this dead guy in the face. I say that it sounds horrific. If you want, you
could shoot that as a horrific scene. But in Desperado it's done purely for comedy, and there are times when I'm like, why in the world I'm not laughing at this? Oh wait, there's Antonio ben Eras in Black Leather. I'm not thinking anymore. You know, that's the whole point of that movie.
I mean, kill Bill. It's not a comedy, but it is. It also steers very hard into being as over the top as possible, so you stop taking the violence seriously.
I think those are all great examples. I think one of the one that I see a lot in particularly in Batman, but I think I've also seen this with Arrow, A Bunch and others, is when you have a character who is a vigilante, who is their claim is that they're doing for justice. It does seem like a lot of times the writers will introduce another character who is more on the vengeance side as kind of a foil
to our hero. And Batman Mask of the Phantasm is one of my favorite examples of this, but I think you also see it in Birds of Prey with the Huntress character kind of shifting from a vengeance and then having her kind of redemption as she moves more into a justice mindset. Talk about that in terms of how you guys feel about this kind of examples of where vengeance is used as the our hero could fall into that. So we're gonna show the an example of someone who does that to keep them away from it.
Well, this kind of encapsulates what I've been thinking about on this topic, which is the question of when does vengeance end? Because you all mentioned the Punisher. I believe his family was killed by some crime boss, and so like in the Punisher movie, we see him go after the crime boss, gain vengeance by killing him and his minions, and then the movie ends. But like for comic books
that the story keeps going. He keeps doing stuff no longer against the people who personally harmed him and his family. So is his vengeance over and what is he doing after that?
Right?
Like, that's kind of my question about vengeance and justice because after that, I think we can argue that Frank Castle is pursuing justice in a kind of way to prevent other similar tragedies from happening. I guess, like a preventative justice or vengeance on behalf of other people who have been wrong perhaps, But it is that still vengeance at that point.
And I think the Punisher is a really interesting character to bring up in that context of like is he a cautionary tale for other heroes Because the answer to that depends entirely on whose name.
Is on the cover of the comic book. Yeah, so if he's showing up.
In a Spider Man or Daredevil comic, then he's absolutely in the wrong and he's a cautionary tale and they can't cross that line. There's literally a Daredevil story where Daredevil goes to jail and the Punisher gets himself arrested and sent to jail so he can be like, don't be like me. It's very funny. But if it's a Punisher story, then all of a sudden, Matt Murdocher Peter Parker is ridiculous and naive and they're completely wrong about everything,
and the Punisher is going to kick their ass. So it really is very much about framing.
Well. And it's funny that you say whose name is on the comic book because what I felt you were going to say was whose name is on the Netflix MCU show, because I think that perhaps my favorite scene in all of the Netflix MCU and not my favorite, definitely in the top five. He is the Punisher in the Daredevil TV show where he's pushing Daredevil on. You know, you arrest people and then they go to jail and they get out when I kill them and they never
get back up. I'm butchering the line, but something like that, and it's this wonderful moment yea, yeah, yeah, exactly, and where we you know, And he's, uh, why can't remember the name of the actor who plays Frank Castle phenomenal at that and I I disagree with him, but he's so close to convincing me, and I get that he's so close convincing man. And then we had the Punisher TV show, which I liked, but frankly, by the end, I couldn't believe him as a hero anymore because I
thought he was too far into vengeance. And we had some great discussions about that, and I think you're right. Yeah, it's that when he's there for Daredevil, he's the foil for Daredevil, but when he has his own show. And this is kind of a related question I want to talk about, which is like, is is Vengeon something that should be for heroes, for anti heroes, for villains or
all three? Because for me, at least with a Punisher, it works for him as an anti hero or as a foil when they tried to make him the hero for me at least that show which went too far. I couldn't I couldn't buy.
It well also, and I want to go back with this just something that Riki said before about when does vengeance stop? And what I was saying before about the structural issues with vengeance, which is again like when does it stop?
And who are you avenging? And so.
In the comics, Frank's mission is very much framed as eradicating all organized crime, or sometimes just eradicating crime, because he's not after the guy who pulled the trigger that killed his family, He's after the system that killed his family, which I think was a smart choice because it allows you to keep telling Punisher stories indefinitely, Whereas and one of the problems with the TV shows was that they were like, you know, in season two of Daredevil, he's
after the guys who were behind his family Seath, and then he gets them. And then in the season one and The Punisher, he finds out there was a whole different thing behind that, and so he gets those guys, and then in season two it's like, oh no, there was a whole It's like how deep does the rabbit hole go? Like how many people were in Central Park that day trying to kill Frank Castle for this like Russian nesting doll of reasons.
Yeah, and so when.
You're doing these ongoing stories when it's comics, it's a TV show. I mean, if we have a Superhero movie, you know, the Marvel Studios is going to bleed that dry. You're going to get five more movies.
You have to.
Figure out a way if you want a character to be motivated by vengeance that they're you can't have it be against one guy or one group of guys, because then either they get them and the story is over, or they don't get them. And you're like, why does this guy suck at vengeance?
Right? Well, it's interesting that you say that that's what
you meant by where does vengeance end? Because I completely agree with you, but Riki I actually thought you were going to go in a different direction, which is that a lot of times also, when we scratch the surface, we find out, you know, this person wants to kill Frank Castle or you know Frank Castle kills those people, and then the ten year old son of that guy grows up and wants to come back and kill Frank, and then that person's need you know where It's just
a going back and forth and back and forth. And I love that we're getting more and more motivations for villains, and often it's vengeance. Now that is the motivation for a villain, and a lot of times it's kind of justified, you know, not where we might say like, okay, we I don't want you going this far with your vengeance. But I get why you're that pissed at Tony Stark. I get why you're that pissed at you know, Bruce
Wayne or whoever it is. And I think that's another kind of interesting question, is about you the ethics of vengeance in general. Is it never stopped?
You know?
How does it just become a cycle of every time someone from the side that just got vengeanced upon them now wants vengeance upon that person and on and on and on.
No, I mean, it doesn't stop. And that's what made the story in Full Metal Alchemists with Scars so powerful, is that Winry chose not to take vengeance upon him for literally killing her parents, and then that opened his eyes and made him choose a different path himself. So yeah, absolutely. I also I was also reminded with the whole like
who's responsible for Frank Castle's family dying? Thing? Of Drax the Destroyer and Guardians of the Galaxy, where they're yeah, well, now you've avenged your family because we killed Ronin the Accuser. He's like, well, but Ronan was working for Thanos, so we still got to go after Thano's.
Right, Yeah, well, and the flip side of that. And this is actually the only one I can think of of the character got vengeance? Now what do they do? Moving outside of the realm, although I think it's fairly comic bookie in Ingo Montoya a Ningo Montoya want vengeance on the six Fingered Man because he killed his father, very clear vengeance story. And in this, by the way, again, I think because it's fantasy, we're okay with it. And Ningo Montoya is straight up a hero. He's not an
anti hero at all. I mean, he's an antagonist who becomes a protagonist, but he's straight up a heroic character. There's never a moment of moral doubt about the goodness of his quest. And then he kills the you know, the sixth Fingered Man, and he literally goes, I don't know what to do with myself. Now this has been my quest for twenty years. What comes next? Well, have
you thought of piracy something of it. I can't think of anyone else in fiction of the kind of as we're talking about at least who gets that vengeance and then has that honest moment of what do I do now?
Well, and he does, but he also I don't think it's not framed as like, oh, I've wasted my life. He's like, well, that's done. Maybe I'll take up gardening. Like he's super happy about it. He's very satisfied, and the audience is satisfied.
Right, well, and let's talk about that, because I like, at least I was saying that I am a little bit troubled by the Punisher in the TV show when it becomes he's so focused on vengeance and I'm a lot of other problems, like I think the collateral damage that he tolerates and stuff like that. But Ingo Montoya I'm totally rooting for, Like I'm totally rooting for. I think I'm saying I don't want a world of vigilantes
each killing the people they think of wrong them. But when Inga Montoya does it, When Antonio Benderas in Desperado, I think the only character name he ever gets is am Mariachi. You know when when Poison Ivy is killing off corporate CEOs. Like, I think there's another great example I've been thinking about a lot, in the very first episode of the new Harley Quinn Quinn Show. Here here's the one that's probably actually the most equivalent to the
events that happened last year. You know, Poison Ivy has found these CEOs of companies that are polluting the environment, killing off vegetation that she obviously loves so much, and she's brutally murdering them. And Harley finds it and it's like cool, you go girl, and we the audience are one hundred feeling like, yeah, you go girl. Why is it you think that that that? Sometimes vengeance can be troubling and sometimes it can be like yeah, we're totally rooting for it.
Well, to me, that's on the storyteller, like how the story is told, like what the world building that they do, and then the way that they are framing the villain or whoever's gaining the vengeance and the the uh the victims that they are killing hurting right, Like you can tell these stories in a way where your sympathies lie in one direction, like the Inigo Montoya one. We don't
know anything about the six Finger man. Heck, I can't even remember his name, right, Like, so he's oh, well, there you go.
My father read that story to me every night when I was a kid, since the reason I know it.
But at least in the movie, he's not really a character, right, Like, he is a he is the subject of Enigo Montoya's vengeance, and and that's really the only context we see him in.
We do know one other thing about him, which is that he likes to torture people, like he tortures Leslie. And that's the only other piece of information, which, right it continues to make us feel a certain way about him.
Yeah, And then so in this story, like, he is very much framed as a bad, bad guy. And I'm not saying that there are good aspects to him. We don't know anything. We don't like, we don't know anything.
We're not told anything about him. So I like to think it's very easy to be like, yeah, that guy should die, especially when Indiego has been repeating the line over and over, and you know, we get behind that, We're like, yeah, okay, Like I think the repetition of that line is in fact meant to get you into that mindset of like if it were me, yeah, I wouldn't want to kill the guy who killed my father, right, Like that's that's the whole point of all that.
Right, because right it's very humanizing. And I think that's why part of what I love so much about the Netflix MCU and other kind of media like that that is really trying to be so realistic is that there's nobody who's a cardboard cutout. You know. Every character we find, for the most part, they try has their own motivation, you see, why they're the hero of their own story.
Like I kind of feel like if we had the Netflix MCU version of The Princess Bride, which please God, don't anyone make, but we'd find out that an Ingo's father was actually this like exorbitantly priced, like had you know, made a deal with Count Rugen and then tripled the price and you know, or like he had done something terrible with Count Rugan's family or Count Rugan you know, because he was a six fingered man, was so treated terribly in the world because of his physical deformity, you know,
whatever it was, Like, we'd have that kind of a backstory. But you're right, and it's it's a lot easier to hate someone and to just enjoy the idea of their vengeance when they're not a character, when they're just that person. They're just the corporate ceo the poison ivy is going after, or the six fingered man, or the dawn of the mafia family that killed your parents or whatever.
It is.
Well, and I think it also has to do with a couple of things that we've touched on, and one of those things is tone.
Like The Princess Bride.
Is a comedy. Yeah, Hard Quinn is a comedy, like we're right, And like I think that the Punisher often works best, Like obviously the TV show is not a comedy.
The movies are not comedies.
Even the comics are not, but they are often so ridiculous, Like they are so completely over the top that you you get swept up in it. It's like I was saying about the show Revenge before, like it's so zany, it's so ridiculous that you're just along for the ride. And the other thing is collateral damage. And I mean, Enigo Montoya is not killing other people. He's killing the one guy that he's after. He's not like slaughtering his way through armies to get to the Six Fingered Man, kills.
One of the things Man's personal guards. But yes, I agree with.
You, You're right he does. I mean, like.
He's not killing civilians.
No, no, you know he does kidnap Buttercup, but they're friends after that, so it's fine. I don't know how it's handled on Harley Quinn, but it sounds like she's
targeting the CEOs very specifically. And it made me think of the first season of Arrow, when they were trying really hard to like do some kind of occupy Wall Street thing, but they weren't very good at it and it was like way too complex of a topic for them to handle, and so every episode you just had Oliver killing a bunch of hired bodyguards and getting to the CEO and being like be less greedy, okay bye.
And leaving and like okay, this city right, like doing.
Absolutely nothing about the people causing a harm. But I remember once keeping track, and I think he murdered forty seven people in season one if you don't count explosions where you can't count how many people it is, but like none of them was the actual person doing something bad.
Yeah, well, it's.
Because Oliver Queen himself is rich, so like those are his pains.
Yeah, and I think doesn't doesn't the Huntress actual characters show up in in like season two or season three of Era, she does.
And they use it.
They use it that way to have to have her as a character where it's like, don't cross the line, Oliver, and it's like, what line? He can't even see the line anymore?
Well, And I think that's sometimes the point is that you will sometimes have like someone is not our character is bad, but this person is clearly worse, and so that like it kind of makes our person better by association. And yeah, I'll say it's one thing that I really liked about as a contrast to that Black Panther, because in that I think there is a good deal of
vengeance behind the feeling of kill Monger. But but but also there's clearly an idea of his his bare his base critique that Black Panther is wrong, that Wakanda needs to be more involved in the world is correct, and by the end of the movie, you know T'Challa is doing exactly that.
But then what do you do with like, you know, we have so many villains now who are from some sort of marginalized identity and or tragic backstory, and they're attacking like.
Someone who is powerful and privilege.
And then the superhero steps and is like, no, no, you can't kill Lex Luthor. That's wrong. And it's like, but Lex Luthor ate my family. Well, if you do this,
you're just as bad as him. Like I just I struggle with that because I feel like it's a way to dismiss the valid points that the villain is making, and it's all in the framing of the story, Like you take those valid points and you put them into the mouth of a character that you can then disregard because they are evengeful vigilante and we don't have to listen to them, right.
Yeah.
I actually think there's a really pertinent example at the end of Falcon in the Winter Soldier or Captain America in the Winter Soldier, right where the flag smashers are seeking vengeance against the rich people and the politicians for the things that are wrong in the world and Captain America Sam stops them. But then he makes that speech and he turns to I believe a senator and he says, Senator,
you need to do better for these people. I think that to me, like in this discussion is the follow up is like, yes, I one hundred percent believe that murder is wrong, like even in even in the pursuit of vengeance against someone who has wronged you or a lot of people, but those with power have to do better to stop the bad things from happening in the first place or in the future.
I mean, I get your point, but to me, Falcon in the Winter Soldier is like it fails at doing that because it the face of the flag smashers is a young woman of color who's lost everything, and it's like, well, ultimately she was irredeemable, and the other antagonist is a white guy who just like gets too full of himself and then causes a lot of problems, and they're like, well, he can get he can be redeemed, he can become better,
which like really did not sit well with me. And then to turn around and like give that lip service to the person in power and be like, but you know, they had a point. It to me, it's it undercuts the point that was made because you can have the hero make a speech, but the actual actions of the plot are about stopping this person because they're wrong, and it's sort of like making a speech about justice after the you know, it's closing the barn door after all
the animals are ound like it. It's they've already shown visually that that person.
Is not righteous.
Yeah, talking our Soldiers. Probably my most disappointing of the uh MCU shows that are the MCU shows on Disney, and for exactly the reason. And I think, Rique, I
very much here what you're saying. I think there's a lot of truth to that, but I think I also think it kind of proves what Jessica, what you were saying there about, like how it's a way of undercutting the villains, because for me, the way they set that up, the villains were really trying to do a We're doing these acts so that people understand how much anger there is, that people understand how broken things are. And when it
became vengeance, I just didn't believe it. Like I was watching it, going, this is horrible pr which until now the people have been very good about pr. This is absoline going to backfire, and all of a sudden, this character has this motivation of vengeance that they have not shown in the past. And I know that was a show that got very affected by the pandemic, and they did a lot of rewrites, and I think that the original version it probably would have really thread the need
a lot better. Yeah. I think that's a great example where it feels like the fact that sometimes that if a person has a very legitimate point about how angry they are, the fact that that anger can turn to vengeance is then used to delegitimize the anger, which which to me is really frustrating because I do want to see kind of more what you're saying Riki of Winter Soldiers speech there, Falcon speech there, Now we're so Captain America's speech there is him saying like, Yo, we may
disagree with what they did about the anger, but we have to pay attention to the anger and realize our fault and causing so much harm that's leading people to be so angry.
Yeah, I mean, I agree with all the points you made about the character herself, Carly right more Morgenthau and the Flag Smashers like being kind of a jumbled mess in terms of motivation and basically like taking the actions they did to serve the plot, which is never great versus you know, kind of being true to your own character and doing things that make sense logically for that character.
Yeah.
Absolutely, I think it could have been much better. And the whole thing about us Agent too, right, the failed Captain America being exonerated like getting I guess joining the Thunderbolts now, it's it did not sit right, especially given what else that show was trying to tell us about
race and all that. But maybe it was being true to the real world in that sense that this guy like basically failed up and did like the most despicable thing possible in that situation, and yet he's he's being given yet another chance.
Yeah.
I like, we'll see, We'll see what happens with that character. I'm actually probably the most curious to see what they do with him in the in the movie.
Yeah. I have such mixed feelings about the Thunderbout movie because there's some of the characters that really love so much, and then some might have no interest in where.
Where's Baron Zimo?
Right? Right? Obviously I just watch him dance for two more hours? But that's a whole other story. So let's talk about another aspect of this. Uh, this kind of ties you into a question about why do we why
do we sometimes enjoy it? And but also it was about kind of like when when it's right or when it's wrong in terms of how we see it, uh revenge fantasy, And Jessica, I wonder if you would talk a bit about, like, we have a lot more attention being paid recently to uh movies that are often being referred to as like the coming of rage story that that we're seeing a lot more like women's vengeance, women's violence being portrayed as like a you know, uh heroic,
and I think really import I'm curious about your thoughts on that trend and how that kind of plays in all this.
Yeah, I mean.
Women are angry. Like not to speak for all women, but I think I speak for all women when I say women are angry. And it is not always easy to get those stories through, given especially like film and television, given how many layers that are to get through and gatekeepers, but it is it isn't a narrative that we see
audiences responding to, especially female audiences. And I think you know, the last time I was on here, we were talking about Superman, and Superman is a power fantasy, but specifically the fantasy of like what if you could protect people, what if you could keep people safe? What if you
could make the world better? Not a fantasy of like violence or harming others, right, And this is the flip side of that that, like there's also an equally valid power fantasy of like what if I could go after everyone that hurt me and go after everyone who hurt people like me and kick their ass. Like we've talked about kill Bill, We've talked about the Birds of Prey movie, also Harley Quinn's flotline in the Second Suicide Squad movie.
These are really satisfying things to watch. They're cathartic in a lot of ways.
Yeah. I don't remember it was you who said this when we talked about Birds of Prey or someone I read, but I remember someone talking about that. Like the power of the Harley Quinn storyline in Birds of Prey is anyone who's had a shitty X, anyone who's been broken up with in a terrible way, and it just you know, you have the fantasy of like, you know, going like
the person from TLC. I think it was Left Eye, you know, burning down David Justice's house or you know what Harley Quinn does of just like yeah, and that cathartic point to me is so interesting because I think often these kind of revenge fantasies we think of, like
the term guilty pleasure comes to mind. But I think it's important to go beyond that, that there is something useful and helpful about not that, like, you know, I don't think millions of people went out and watched Harley Quinn and then went out and burned down their x'es
homes or you know, did terrible things. But the chance to imagine that, to imagine, oh, you know, wouldn't it be satisfactory to see that horrible thing happen or to me to do the horrible thing to this person who in my mind has wronged me with a capital W. That that can tick a box in a way that people can be psychologically healthy, for people can be can be well.
I also think it's important like talking specifically about like women's revenge movies. Like there's a French movie that's literally called Revenge about a woman who goes after men who
have sexually assaulted her. It's a very heavy movie, but it's the violence in it like serves this purpose of reflecting back the violence that was done to her, right, And I think it's important for me, like as a man, like to think about that and what the world is like for women specifically like in these situations and obviously like to not do that and perpetrate that, but also to think about the way that when we talk about
issues like this, that we often excuse things. Maybe not literally, but there are ways that discussions about these topics happen that minimize the damage or you know, sometimes exonerate manner all the stuff you know that happened around what was it the depth heard trial, right, and the discussions on that.
It was men excusing other men's actions, whether it was literally saying like well, he didn't do it, or just like oh, that's just you know, we've heard terms like locker room talk, like all of that kind of stuff is is wrong. And these movies or these fantasies, these revenge fantasies should not only highlight, you know, how vengeance is taken, but what they are taken for and what
we need to do to correct it. Like I I still like come back to that of we need to be better, right, like Captain America is at Senator, you need to be better. But these are cases where all of us need to be better in a sense because we all have power over very personal situations like this.
Well, there's two things that come to mind here, and I'll say the first and then and then get into a second like you guys talk about it and get in a second. But the first one being I feel like a lot of times vengeance movies really hit us and I fulfill that revenge fantasy when we see people getting away with doing bad things and that the system that we would want that would have a fairly reasonable consequence
isn't happening. And so the fantasy of the completely unreasonable or not unreasonable, but completely like you know, far over the top happening is incredibly Part of why we want that is because nothing else is happening. You know, we want someone to shoot the bad guy because the justice system has failed and they've gone free. We want someone to you know, finally figure out that the the white guy is not actually being very successful and do something
about that, because they do keep failing upward. You know how much you think that is part of revenge fantasy as well, is that it's the someone has to do something because the normal systems aren't working.
Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
Well, yeah, I think like in the case of like a big picture thing like that, like a CEO or a politician, right, Like, those are people we think of as having a lot of power, and when there's a revenge story against them, it's because like we are so powerless, yeah, in our in our regular lives to really do anything against them. So it's like, oh, well, like someone actually did something and that can resonate due to our powerlessness.
Yeah, And I want to bring that back to a gendered framing for a minute, because when you talk about these vengeance stories, like we were just talking about stories where a female character is getting vengeance, but that's not the role women usually play in vengeance stories. The role they usually play is the object that's being avenged. I mean, look at the punisher, his family, including his wife and daughter are killed. Look at Drax, his family is like
the over and over again. I mean that's where the term friging comes from. When you talk about frigging, it's not just a woman dying. It's a woman dying or being sexually assaulted or beaten or kidnapped or whatever in order to further a male story. And so there's something particularly cathartic about sort of coming out of the fridge and going after your own yourself exactly.
Well, there was, and that kind of ties into the other thing. I was gonna raise that this is what you know, brought it from me. The term punching up is often used in humor. You know that, like people making fun of their oppressors feels a lot better than making fun of the oppressed people. And I wonder can we use the same framework for vengeance movies, because like it, You know, there are men who have been wronged and cheated on or treated terribly by women in relationships. You know,
it can happen in any kind of gender combination. But as I'm thinking about it, like and I was in this happened to me once or twice. I've also been a terrible partner of times. But like the idea of a movie about a man whose head is heart broken by a woman and thus goes on a revenge fantasy quest that's horrific to me in the same way of like you know, but yet I'm sure that's a power fantasy that unfortunately is very popular among some folks.
And they exist, but they're weirdly romantic comedies. Yeah, that's the problem is that these men go on like do terrible things in this quote unquote comedic context because they were wronged by a woman there there, because their feelings were hurt by a woman, right, Like, so they don't fit into this vengeance thing we're talking about.
Right and like with humor, Like there isn't the systemic system of sexism that's playing into it. And and like another good example I think of this is the movie Shaft, which any of you u seeing the documentary about the movie Shaft, They make a really big deal about how it was turned into the beginning of this black exploitation uh genre, which you know is the whole lot of complicated stuff about that I'm not even gonna get into.
But like the director very much wanted a movie where the black guy gets to get away with all the things that the white guys normally get to do. You know, that he sleeps with the white woman, he kills a cop, he's a drug dealer, he's not but he's but he's a heroic guy, and he gets away with it because that had never been seen And is this a fair framework to think about then? Like the kind of we feel a lot better about vengeance movies when it kept punching up.
I mean, to bring back arrow, Like Oliver Queen is a member of the one percent, so seeing him scolding other members of the one percent is not that satisfying.
Yeah, that's fair, And yeah, I don't even know if it would be a vengeance plot if some powerful person I mean, like Bruce, Bruce Wayne. Okay, we're gonna talk about Batman.
Yeah, and he is the Knight, so yeah, but he's not right.
Like that line is very famous from Batman, the animated series, and they they riffed on it again and the patentson Batman of calling himself vengeance. But I feel like in comics he has not been vengeance really ever. So it's kind of weird that like the modern version of Batman has become.
This well, and that goes back to sort of the structural thing of like who would he be avenging? Because if he's going after the guy who killed his parents, that's just like a mugger. Like, I mean, we know who he is. His name's Joe Chill. They've done a million comics with him, and they all suck because who cares.
But they've also weird storylines where Joe Chill was hired by I know, it's.
The worst, It's the worst.
It's the thing we're talking about earlier, like you gain vengeance on the person who personally wronged you, and then what like well, like they're part of an organization.
Well, and then I think it also goes back to like it's a way to make Batman the underdog, like Bruce Wayne is a an insanely wealthy white man, like he has almost every access of privilege available to him. But what he's fighting is the notion of crime itself, and that allows to be punching up in a way that any indi of ctual villain, Like.
When he fights the Joker.
I mean, I'm on record as nothing Joker fan, but also that guy can't throw a punch, look at him like one. But when he's fighting against like the the evil and depravity within the human spirit, then it's like, ah, you can do it, little buddy. Like that's when we want to root for him because that is something that he can punch up against.
I think some of my favorite Batman stories are the ones that I think, I think this is kind of the year one idea. Often where he does start out very motivated by vengeance, but then gets to a point where he realizes, like, I, you know, this isn't going
to serve me at all. Often because he does the vengeance or someone else does, you know, someone kills Joe Chill, or he realizes Joe Chill just you know, was just looking to score for that night, to get money, to get his next fix, or to get a meal or whatever it is. And now we say that, you know, maybe what should have happened is Bruce willis Bruce Wayne should realize that, like the best way to fix Joe Chill to give him a job instead of beating him up.
But that's that's another story. But I think I really love those stories where he starts out wanting that and then has that flip of realizing, no, I shouldn't be about trying to punish. I should be about trying to protect. And You're right, that is about It's not about one particular crime family. It's about how do I fix the corruption, how do I fix the police department? How do I give people hope again, which where I think is so revolutionary about the end of the Robert Pattinson movie. And
also I love the Penguin TV show. I want to talk about it, but it kind of ignores the most important part the Batman movie in ways that make me frustrated, but the whole other story. But yeah, and it to
pull it back into the real world. One of the political causes that I've been most involved with is anti death penalty work, especially when I was in California, a state that has the death penalty and carried out the death penalty a number of times while I was a citizen there, and there was something I was very very
opposed to and did a lot of protesting work. And one person I saw at a number of protests was the father of I think it was a daughter, I'm not sure, but someone who had been killed, and he had been as the father of the murder victim, campaigning for the murderer to get the death penalty, and the person he it happened, they were caught, they were given
the death penalty, they were killed. He was there and he now speaks in anti death penalty rallies because he talked about how he kept telling himself that he would feel better once he saw the son the murderer of his child killed, but then he said that he's just haunting words I'll never forget. You know, I woke up and my son was still dead. I'm say done. I think it was son, but whatever it was, but you know, I woke up and my child was still dead, and
that hit me really hard. And I think, is it kind of flip side a lot of these things of that that that's kind of also the difference between the personal vengeance story and this kind of like striking a blow for the oppressed group, you know, or the abused group, is that it's not about I want to kill this person to deal with my grief. It's about I want to kill this person or do the thing, or bring this person down so that this doesn't happen to somebody again.
But then I think that that's no longer vengeance. If you're doing it to make.
A better world, that's justice.
Yeah, right, well, And I think that's where one of the things that I think is most interesting when these stories explore it, because I think it happens all the time, is self deception. And I think that in the same way everyone thinks that they're the hero, I do think almost everyone who's out for vengeance is can convince themselves that they're doing it for justice, and sometimes you know, and there's a question of like who are we to
sit and judge them? But the whole point of the podcast is that we sit and judge them, you know. I think that's an interesting example. It's an interesting exercise in when when do we think they're right? When do we think they're wrong? And with someone like Batman, I think, for the most part, I think he's right, but I think a lot of times he does stumble and get
it wrong. And this pains me to say, Jessica, but there are times in the Justice League cartoon, for example, where I think Superman is the one who has to pull him back some And yes.
I I've had to sit in so many episodes to get to this point.
Well.
And I also think there's different, for lack of a better word, there's different ways of somebody.
Being quote unquote right.
There's like what we would want to happen in reality, and there's what we would want to happen in an abstract like moral exercise, and there is what is satisfying emotionally, and those are not always the same thing. And it's like, I mean, you started this episode saying that you know none of us are here going oooh, murders the solution to everything. But certainly in fiction there are times that you're not even going well, you know, of course I
would disapprove of this. In real life you're like, yeah, I get him, Frank like, it's it's fun and it's satisfying, and it feels right. I mean, Inigo Montoya killing the six Fingered Man feels right, is it.
That's a different question, yeah.
I mean what's shocking to me is the number of Disney movies that end with a villain dying. Like I was watching what is it? Beauty and the Beast, and I was like, oh, he just fell from the top of this tower. He's he's dead, right.
He's like yeah, But I think that's the key. Is that an awful lot of them. And I read something about this that this was a very intentional policy for a while. The hero never kills the villain right feeling kills himself like I'm the The best example that's used is that the dragon in Sleeping Beauty, which I think is maleficent, I don't I maybe mixing up my uh, but she charges at the Prince Prince Philip, I think, and he dodges and she falls off the edge of a cliff and dies well.
And also the sword like magically flies into her heart. But that's a magic sword. That's yeah. But there's a lot of gaston falls to it, like, and I think there's even a moment where the Beast is trying to save him and.
He stabs the beast, which causes him. It's his own fault.
But my point was, like act of God, She's on a cliff that gets hit by lightning. She falls, like, yeah, I didn't do it, sorry, go ahead.
Well, my point was that the death like of a villain is so satisfying to audiences that it's happened. It happens even in Disney movies that we think of as like these clean, happy things. It's like, oh, like yeah, like this is this is just part of our cultural thing, is that we that guy is so bad we wanted to die.
I mean, in the Little made Ursula gets skewered with a boat.
I couldn't watch that scene until I was like twelve. It messed me up so bad.
It's a lot, it's a lot.
Yeah. Well, and it's funny because I've come to realize that I no longer find those satisfying. But it's not
for some like morality reason. It's that what I want is I want the villain to realize they were wrong, you know, that that the person they thought would never come back to get them has come back to get them, or that the police would would never actually rise against them, or whatever it is, you know, like you know, you know whatever, that that that the people they think they've bought don't stay bought, And so I'm always frustrated when they just die instead of having that moment of realization
of like, oh no, I was wrong. But yeah, it's the same kind of thing. Well, we've been talking for a while here, and I want to kind of just I think we've already been kind of touching on this a lot, but maybe kind of get into the this is aur wrap up question. So how do you see, like where are the difference what are the things that that create differences between like what we might say like, yeah, I'm actually like in a real world, I totally want this to happen versus what we enjoy on screen.
I mean, there's a lot of things that I enjoy in media that I don't want, Like I also don't want kids sidekicks to exist in reality, like go to school.
This is too dangerous. Yeah, but watching it when you're twelve, watching Riaki and I've talked about this that when you're twelve, like watching a twelve year old step into a mecca is awesome. Later you're like, no, no, kids shouldn't be piloting death robots. That's a bad idea.
No, it is awesome. It's what I've always wanted to do. Yeah, But at least when we're talking about Gundam, like it shows you why we shouldn't do that, right, because every one of those kids, at least, like in the first half of Gundam's history, like, they end up severely traumatized by war. And I like, I don't know, Like I prefer my vengeance a I prefer when they are either a villain or as we said, an anti hero a foil, like, not the primary protagonist. And then I think I prefer
vengeance to be less bloody. I guess the I don't know how to put this, but scenes where someone just like beats the person of their eyre to a bloody pulp like make me deeply uncomfortable in a way. And I would prefer just like a laser blast or just an explosion to take them out. So like, I guess the personal the personalness of vengeance, like when someone takes their vengeance and just like gets in the face of the person that they're upset with, and and and just
like we see like too much of that. It makes me uncomfortable and I'm frankly like, I don't like this see that.
Probably one of, if not my top three favorite superhero movies is Logan, and part of it's because I think one of the most upsetting scenes I've ever seen, and it's so chilling, is when these superpowered little kids get a chance to enact vengeance on the person who's done
terrible things to them. And it's shot like a horror movie, this like group of kids coming around and exactly you're talking about brutally killing a person who I have no sympathy and no love for, and like, you know, any other circumstance, I'd be like, oh my god, yes you go, kids, But instead I'm like, oh my god, these kids are
now trapped in the same cycle of brutality. It's a heartbreaking scene while also feeling like justified vengeance, and it's it's one of those heroin scenes and the fact that I'm so conflicted about it as part of I think it's so good.
Yeah, and that is good storytelling. I say it makes me uncomfortable. I don't want to see it, but when I do see it, like you you can and should acknowledge like that it makes you feel a certain way, and that is often the intention.
Yeah, I think it's about like committing to either going in that direction where you're like you're exposing like how this is not a real solution, how it's just repeating the cycle of violence and vengeance and you know how traumatic it is, et cetera, or you go completely goofy over the top. It's when you try to thread the needle in between that you end up with something that's just sort of incoherent, like Falcon in the Winter Soldier, like Arrow, where it's like you you haven't you haven't
thought through what you're trying to say. And I think the ones that are over the top do also think through what they're trying to say. It's they're very thoughtful approaches, they're just not living in the shades of gray. I think you have to go all shades of gray are all black and white. But if you try to be like, oh, this is messy, but this guy can do no wrong, then it doesn't make sense and it doesn't work.
There's a scene in the movie Desperado where after brutally killing all these people in hilariously awful, wonderful ways, you know, someone comes up to him and it's like, that's awesome that you did this, and our hero says, yes, but everyone I killed was someone's husband, someone's father, someone's son, and you're just like, okay, you filmers, you try to have it both ways. You know, you're trying to like put this in here, and it's either like incredibly brilliant
or incredibly cynical filmmaking. I'm not quite sure which, but because it does expose that you know that, like, yes, it's true, And I think maybe that's kind of where my final comment on all this is, and I want to hear you from you all as well. It feels like one of the essential parts of vengeance is that we're able to see the person we're getting vengeance on not as a real person, but as a two D cutout of just the evil ex boyfriend, the evil CEO,
the evil whatever. It is, like you said about kat Rugan, we don't know anything else about him, and I think kind of when I like, for me, I've always said that's kind of like the thing I find most troubling, and that that I think I love so much about the whole idea of the dark Side and Star Wars is for me, the essence of the dark side is when you're anger at someone allows you to not see any other part of them, to just see them as the two D cutout and and and kind I guess
that that's part of where I see it all in real life, is that I I feel like we're in a world more and more where it's easier to see people as two D cutouts, in part because sometimes like and I'm not gonna get in that so it could be too complex, but yeah, so just that that to me, that's one of the essentials of all of this is like it can be helpful to have a a person that is a stand in of that stereotype that it's cathartic to fight against, or can it be so ridiculously
over the top that it's fun to fight against, but that that it's that dehumanization that has to go into engines that when it becomes more real, becomes a lot harder to watch.
Yes, I not to get to I know, we don't want to get too into what happened last year, but I do think all of the people who died because their claims were denied were three dimensional human beings too, and that was dehumanization on a massive scale, literally with AI denying claims. And I'm not saying that what happened was the solution, but I think dehumanizing anybody in like, it's just I just want to note the dehumanizing anybody ever, is not going to end anywhere good.
I appreciate that, and I that's what I was trying to say, but also having a lot of trouble putting into words, because to me, it's that there are There was something I read that said that the killing of CEO can be seen more than I think is a symptom of a larger problem, and that a part of that is that and again this is a much more complicated issue, but the the way that the lives of the powerful have become more and more and more separated from the lives of everyone else, I think adds to
a lot of this. And that, yeah, I think that the cycle of dehumanization that leads to that certainly does not start with someone thinking of an evil CEO. And I think that's that's a very important point to keep in mind with all of this, and that I think plays into all these discussions.
Yeah, I think I think rich people are dehumanizing us absolutely, Like that's a thing that they are so out of touch with reality. Like I was talking with my wife about the how much could a banana cost? Ten dollars?
Michael Meme right from Arrested Development, And that's the thing, Like they are so out of touch with the reality of what an or married person deals with the price of a banana in this Memes case, but like anything right like that they don't understand like what the average or the majority of the people in life go through, and so like they make decisions, whether it's healthcare or politics or or anything, and it's like they don't touch reality at all.
What I think we're seeing another example of that right now in the you know, massive move of you know, we've had our government telling us for months that TikTok is super dangerous because it could give our data to you know, the Chinese government, and so a lot of people in response is okay, cool, I'm gonna find it. Yeah, that directly gives the information to the Chinese government or the meme of it. I'm just gonna start printing out my search history and sending it to the Chinese consulate
or whatever. Yeah. I think that what undergirds a lot of these things is the and just to tie it even more, like some of the analysis that read about the movie Jennifer's Body, which I think is often seen as like one of the beginnings of this modern version of the coming of rage stories. Fantastic movie that got totally mismarketed and is really a great exploration of this
kind of you know, revenge fantasy. And one thing that the reviewer said is that she thought the most important part of the reaction was men who didn't get it, Like who just were like, I don't get it. Why would someone be this angry? And that that's the point is that, like the movie is supposed to be about helping you see like this, this is how angry people are.
This is how angry women are. This is how angry people are at racism, at sexism, and at what's happening in healthcare, what's happening in international policy stuff like that, and I, you know, vengeance isn't what I'm gonna choose as a method, but I I think for me, one of the essential questions I'm always gonna ask when I see an act of vengeance is was a person given a chance to get the message across that something was wrong in some other way before they chose vengeance? And
if not, then I'm not gonna condone it. But I can understand it.
Well, I've got kind of a broad shift, if I may.
Like.
I took some notes and I did some research on the character of the Specter, who's a DC Comics character, and then Ghostwriter right, who's from Marvel, and I was most interested. They're both supernatural agents of vengeance. They inhabit like human bodies or to interact with the world. But the Specter is an agent of quote unquote God is my understanding, And I don't know how deep that goes, and like how connected it is to a specific god. They just say God, that's.
The Christian God. He's okay, Well they don't.
I don't know that they specify, but basically, yeah, he's the embodiment like his like tagline or whatever. Is the embodiment of God's vengeance specifically.
And then Ghostwriter originally was given his powers by Satan, but I think it's been retcon to being Befisto, which is just marvel Satan, let's be honest. But that to me, like we've talked a lot about human vengeance, but this is like supernatural vengeance, and so I find it interesting because it seems to me like that gives it more license to be correct, Like how does that how does that sound to you in terms of vengeance.
Yeah, I'm not super familiar with Ghostwriter. I haven't read many Ghostwriter comics, but in what I've seen of the Specter, it's very much like the Specter knows what's, yeah, the right thing to do, because he is imbued with divine knowledge and like enacts like I know there was a run in the seventies that's like infamous for like the horrific, horrific consequences that he visited on Like, oh, this logger is cutting down a forest, I'll turn him into a
tree and then he gets fed into a wood chipper like that kind of and like is conscious while that's happening. Like those are the kinds of acts of vengeance that he would enact, and I it was less certain of what he was doing when how Jordan was the specter for a bit and then there was a lot of like, oh, what's the right thing to do? But yeah, usually it's like I just know because I'm the specter and God told me, and now that guy is gonna melt or whatever.
Yeah, I think for me it's funny. My favorite comicot hero is still Daredevil, and a part of why I love him so much is that he has so much doubt and that for me, I'm a very religious person. I'm also a deeply agnostic person, and I kind of think you have to be agnostic to actually be a person of faith. I think if you have certainty, that's no longer faith, that's you're telling yourself a fairy tale. Wow,
he's probably lost a whole bunch of listeners. But my point being that because I think that there's a line in a Billy Joel's song Shades of Gray, which is a wonderful, wonderful song, and there's a line in it that the only people I fear are those who never have doubts. And I think that if you believe that God has put you on this earth to right wrongs, kind of going to what you were saying Jessica about like,
what's the authority that you adhere to you? Now you are literally you've given yourself the ultimate authority and nothing can question you. And that's not always bad. I mean John Brown freed slaves and led uprisings to murder slaveholders because he believed God told him to. And on the same token, people blow up abortion clinics and murder abortion doctors and see themselves as modern day John Brown's because they think God told them to. And that's true in
almost every religion of some degree another. And yeah, I for me, I think characters like that are really interesting. And I don't know the specter very much, but I think that I would not want to see a character presented as a hero who is told that God is telling them what to do and we are supposed to
agree with that. I'm a big believer that God should never appear on stage, you know, and that should always be portrayed as a problem, a self justification, and then maybe we'll be true in the case the spectru I'm not saying it isn't, but like to me, someone like Daredevil or Nightcrawler, for whom their faith is something they're constantly wrestling with and wondering should they be doing what
they're doing. Is what I want to see because I think, yeah, it's it's well, probably going to do a whole other episode on it. But to me, one of the other fundamental questions is accountability. And I think if you're if you're someone who's gonna say I have this power, I'm going to try and do right, there has to be to some degree that you are accountable to others, whether that's the law, whether that's your community, whether that's you know,
your law clerk and your secretary, whatever it is. You know, there has to be other people who you're going to listen to when they say I think you're wrong, And the closer you get to God telling you, the harder that is.
But I think the difference between like a character like dared Devil or Nightcrawler, like Garden Variety Catholics like it's it is literally true in the case of the Specter that God told them.
To do that, like that's yeah, this is why I like I mentioned this in the concept It's Supernatural.
Yeah, that.
It's similar to the TV show the fall of the House of Usher, and that the character in that is a some kind of spirit of vengeance. We don't know how or why, Like that's not explained in the same
way that the Specter is. But I feel like characters like that give us some moral clarity and that we we trust them, right, Like, I understand what Matthew is saying that if there was a human character who says that they are acting on behalf of God, that is that is uncomfortable and that should be questioned, at least in the context of these fictions. Like, I think we just believe that this is happening because the supernatural thing is allowing for it, right.
Yeah, I think the better word for it is maybe karma, Like it's you know, there's there is a proud tradition in comic books which was briefly stifled because the comics coulde but horror comics, which are just like, hey, here's a terrible person. They're doing terrible things. Now an ironic terrible thing is going to happen to them, and everybody goes away feeling great about it.
I mean, maybe freaked out.
But also like, yes, that's how it's supposed to work. And the specter is the agent through which Inspector stories that consequence is karmically visited on the person who deserves it.
Yeah.
I found it interesting because that actually, like the revision of the Comics Code in nineteen seventy one is what is cited as when the specter turned to what you're describing, and ghostwriter was creating a character around the same time. Yeah, so it was like the loosening of the comics Code, and they're like, well, I think we can have characters that go a little more deeper, I guess, into the violence of it all.
Yeah, I surely think, like, you know, kind of a part of the revenge fantasy is the shouten freud of it all, you know, and that we want to see that. But I think for me, I would have I think it's kind of the same way that, like, because my parents are lawyers, they have real trouble with law and order, you know. I I just would have real trouble watching
that because I have so much the TV show. Yeah, Like, I would have so much trouble watching a TV show about a character who I'm being told I can believe they're vengeance because God is telling them to do that because I just that that idea is so horrifically dangerous, you know, uh, and and and and so rife to question because you know it's it's again, it's the to me, once you are at all certain of anything about God, then then we're into days with high body counts. But I can see the.
I think the Specter TV show would be unwatchable anyway, so you're probably safe.
Is there a Spector type character in the m CU, like I would love to see Daredevil have a conversation with a person like that, You know.
Well, I think it's I mean, not in the MCU yet. But ghost Writer to me is the equivalent of the Specter, and it's less. It's weird because he's imbued by Mephisto, who is evil, and you know, in this context of the Specter, we think of God as good. But I'm I don't know, like Ghostwriter, I guess has more of a human element to him that makes him more unpredictable than the Specter.
Right.
Yeah, I'm trying to think of like a good comparable character in the Marvel universe, and yeah, I can't think of anybody who. I mean, there have definitely been stories where Matt meets someone. You know what, The closest thing I can think of is the Guardian Devil storyline by Kevin Smith in nineteen ninety nine, where basically Matt is given custody of a baby and is like, this baby
is the Antichrist thing. You need to kill it, and he's like, I guess I better kill this baby and everybody that acts very erratically for a long time, and long story short, it turns out that it is an elaborate hoax by Mysterio, who has been drugging the entire cast with extremely powerful, extremely specific drugs for days and days to make Matt think that he has been spoken
to by God. But it's all a lie. And this is also the storyline where Karen Page dies, so like things end very badly, the baby survives, And I think.
That's an interesting like difference between the.
Sort of very epic, not that the Marvel universe is an epic, but like the very epic and often very clear cut good and bad world of the DC universe, and like Daredevil's world, where the closest comparison is actually just some weasel drugging everybody and lying and saying that God spoke to him.
Right, Well, yeah, I mean there's a a pastor who I know who who's done a lot of stuff on MCU stuff and has talked about how like there's absolutely no such thing as a single like theology that understands the MCU because it is both like there's references to the monotheistic god of Islam and Judaism and Christianity, and then also like Loki and and all the Egyptian gods of Mark Spector wasn't moon moon night Moon night, you know, like all this you know, there's so yeah, it's very confusing.
I mean, the best take on it is when the Fantastic Four went to heaven and they met God and he was Jack Kirby.
It was great.
I can get that.
Well.
I was saying, if someone wanted to write a comic book about like vengeance, like the Book of Exodus is kind of a good version, you know, like the drowning of all the people in the sea. Uh, there's an awful lot of vengines in that story, and and yet also a lot of critique of it that that.
Listen, he said, let my people go, Bara didn't let us go.
You know, I this is gonna get Rayosoteric here. But this is one for me, one of the most powerful moments of understanding, like a change in my understanding of vengeance. And I think a lot of young kids who grow up in Jewish families may go through this. There's a moment in the Satyr, which is the celebration of Passover, the celebration of the Exodus story, where as you recount the ten plagues, you're supposed to dip your finger into a glass of wine and spill out a drop onto
your plate for everyone. And I thought that was badass as hell. You know. It was like, yeah, we're putting blood up because red wine looks like blood. We're putting blood on our plate to be a big like you know,
few Egyptians like our God got you. And what I later came to learn and and you know, my no one in my family had known this until we kind of looked more into it, because the Hagata we'd worked with was very much not making this lesson is that the point is to say that you are reducing the amount of wine and thus the amount of joy you have, because we have to remember that the celebration of our freedom came at the death of others, and that should
reduce the amount of our celebration, which I think is a gorgeous, gorgeous lesson and it's a complete rejection of the idea of celebrating vengeance. And yeah, that's not how the ritual appears to a lot of people. And when I've talked to people about this, like that's a lot of people are like, yeah, of course I knew that. And I was like, oh no, I thought that was a big like you know, raw Rock, God, you sent the plagues, you sent the boils. That's awesome.
Yeah, No, that's that's my favorite part of the Stay or two And it is for exactly that reason, because of the meaning behind it. And we cannot have a full cup when it came at the cost of other people suffering.
Right, all right, Well, we've now wandered very far from the topic, So any last thoughts from either of you on this topic. I think we completely wrapped up the topic of vengeance. Everything is solved. We can move on to the next thing.
Next month is going to cost episode and the cycle of podcast vengeance will begin.
Oh my god, Oh my god. Don't talk about vengeance and being wrong, Just just hang out on podcast Twitter, and you'll see all sorts of things. I'll say, I'd make this the last question for each of you. Favorite and least favorite example of vengeance as a character motivator. Oh gosh, and Riki hates when I don't let him prepare for questions like this, so I apologize.
I mean, it's less that I hate, it is that I don't know where to start.
I'll give mine. I think my least favorite is Punisher. I've talked a lot about the MCU Punisher because I feel like they really try to frame him as heroic in ways that are I guess to me, because again, like where I have a problem with vengeance is when it does blind you to the things that I think
should be taken into account. When it's you you're looking for vengeance, you know, like the person who killed your father because they fundamentally believe that your father had done wrong and they had been lied to, manipulated, and now you want to kill that person like that. That, to me is what really happened a lot in the Punisher story.
My favorite is I think because I see the word the words vendetta and vengeance is pretty much you know in Vendetta is an attempt to get vengeance is V for Vendetta because the biggest thing that I feel about vengeance, and here's the whole other thing that we haven't got into, is that vengeance is about destroying, it's not about building.
And the fundamental thing I think that that V for Vendetta holds true is that, like, if if you're acting out of vengeance against one system, if that sense of vengeance is carried into the attempt to build the new system, you know, whether it's a new relationship, a new family, and new country, then everything is still gonna be about, you know, getting getting justice against the people who wronged you.
And and the character of V fundamentally understands he is motivated by vengeance and so therefore he shouldn't be part of He's going to destroy the things he hates, but someone else should protect the things that they should love. So that that's my personal favorite.
Freaky you got one?
Okay, I had to google best stories of vengeance just to see like what was out there and to kind of have my my brain triggered looking at this. Absolutely like one of my favorites is Gladiator Maximis I foind It was just like a beautiful story, like he gets his vengeance upon the emperor, but then you know himself dies, but has also along the way, like helped other people, inspired people in a way. I've not seen Gladiator too.
I don't know what happens, whether it's even a follow up to that story or not, but I just I love that movie. I love that character, and it's a it's a satisfying act of vengeance that is not doesn't trigger me in the ways that I talked about of like you know, like being too personal and bloody and all that. I think it's it's bloody like, but but it's a it's a nice, clean fight. My least favorite looking at this list, John Wick, Like, what the heck? I know, I know, like people love dogs and like
does the dog dies a thing? But my dude, it's a dog. And I know it's a gift from your wife, but teacher, really like.
Over the top.
I love the heck John Wick.
My girlfriend literally got a dog a week ago, so I have to kind of but it's funny. I was gonna mention John Wick earlier because I've offered heard people bring it up as it Yes, there's a connection to his wife, but it's not whose wife gets killed, and that it's not that they kind of take romance off the table entirely, and yes it is connected to her, but that it's not yet again a pretty woman who's brought on screen just to be fridged and be a character motivator.
What's the line from Brooklyn ninety nine where Rosa gets the puppy and she's like, I've only had this puppy for a day and a half and if anything ever happened to him, I'd kill everyone in this room and then myself.
I think that's exactly the liar, very popular meme. Jessica. You you very very slyly deflected on Jermiki, So you can think about it for another minute or two. Do you have yours?
Yeah, so my least I knew my least favorite right away. I thought about it when you sent the topic over.
I was like, I know Barry Allen, Oh god.
I can't imagine him going for oh yeah.
No, yeah you can, yeah you can because they don't stop doing that stupid story. So yeah, Barry Allen, like was introduced in nineteen fifty six, died in nineteen eighty five maybe eighty six. I don't know what month came back in what two thousand and five. Up until that point, he had a perfectly like happy home life. He had a very wholesome backstory, had no great tragedies. His wife died, but then it turned out she actually time traveled and she was fine.
Like he didn't have.
That the yeah, it's always time travel. He didn't have that like motivating tragedy. So in two thousand and five, when they brought him back and everybody was like, why would you bring back Barry Allen, He's so boring, they were like, no, we're gonna make him interesting. We're going to kill his mom, And all of a sudden, his story became about how his mom was murdered when he was a child. This was a retcon that had never
been true before. And now he's like a gritty, very fast cop and he has to figure out who killed her. And that's how he got the Flashpoint story in the comics where he goes back in time to try to save her and he breaks the universe.
And it led to the New fifty two, which I've never forgiven DC for.
And then we got a Flashpoint animated movie, and then we got Flashpoint in the TV show, and then we got Flashpoint in the live action movie, and like, the thing is, it just doesn't fit Barry Allen's Like you said, I can't picture Barry Allen doing that. That's the only story they ever tell with Barry Allen. But it doesn't work for him because that's not the kind of character he is. And I just it makes me so mad, and they won't stop telling it.
Yeah, no, that's very true. And it's funny because I love, you know, Grant Gusterson's flash, you know, the CW Flash. I think it's so good and it's funny that I've just blanked out how big a part of his story that is. But you know that, and you know, I think, do you try to tell some of the stories with him? They let him Gaslight Iris over and over and over again and.
Horrible refreshing break from vengeance. Yes, letting your one true love.
So what's your favorite?
Well, I was gonna say Aego Montoya, and then I copied Riki and I googled best stories of vengeance just to see what popped up. And I do want to say that one of the results I got was just Aaron Burr No further explanation, which is hilarious.
It is on this list for some reason. I ignored that, But.
Who is the one getting the vengeance? Anyway?
But two popped up that I really really loved, and I was like, oh, yeah, I wasn't even thinking of those because they're not at all superhero stories. One is Murder on the Orient Express Oh okay, which I think is a really I'm not going to spoil it for anybody,
but you should read it if you haven't. But it's a really interesting way of We've been talking about how vengeance is extra judicial and it's outside of the rule of law, and there is a way in which the murder in this story there is an attempt to replicate the legal proceedings that cannot be gotten the normal way, which I think is really interesting and I will say no more highly recommended.
And then the other one.
That showed up on here, and I was like, oh, yeah, that's the one First Wives Club.
Oh interesting, okay, yeah, because that's about I remember the first time I saw that, I thought it was about like, you know, wives of presidents, but no, it's about a bunch of women. It's about women whose husbands have divorced them for younger, younger, younger second wives.
Right, yeah, yeah, it's it's well, this is the book that's popping up, but the movie is Diane Keaton and Bett Middler and Goldie Hawn and yes, all their husbands are leaving them for younger women and they decide to
get revenge. Crucially, they are not murdering these men. They are just like stealing all their money and then they use it like their motivation is that their fourth best friend killed herself when this happened to her, and so they are using it to create like a I believe it's like a it's some nonprofit that's like in her name and is going to help women in similar situations. And it is very much about revenge, just like reclaiming one's agency and personhood.
And it's also a comedy.
Like I said, I like revenge, Calm is best and this one is very silly and again highly recommended.
If you haven't seen it, you should.
It is funny when you say that, because it also it reminds me of how many of like I love rom comms, and especially love like high school rom comms from like the eighties and nineties and an awful lot of them. Your main character gets bullied a lot, and that it's in the process of working out a revenge fantasy against the bully with the girl next door that they fall for each other. And that's just a very
common but really fun, fun thing. So all right, well, it's just been great and to our listeners, thank you so much. We're hopefully not always going to be this long, but we're gonna have a lot to talk about, and I think the uh you know that that it's be fun to explore these What are your thoughts on vengeance, what are your thoughts on your favorite ways doesn't pay it out in stories, or how it applies to real life, or any of these things. Would love to hear from you.
We'll also going to hear from you. What are other fundamental ethical questions of superheroes that you'd like us to explore. And of course this has been for everybody, but going forth, these will be members only episodes and you can become a member for only five dollars a month fifty five dollars a year. Write in the show notes you'll see the link, or if you just go to the Ethical Panda dot com that'll take you to the link. For that five dollars a month, you get ad free episodes.
Every episode will be ad free and a member's only feed. Most of our episodes will have a bonus content from members, not this one, because this whole thing was bonus content. And also you get to know your support and you'll get the bonus episodes going forward. It is one membership for both this and the Star Wars Generations podcast. You get all that content, although you can choose not to if you're not a Star Wars fan. You can have just this one or just that one or both, totally
up to you. And of course you get to help us keep the lights on, help us keep you know, good good microphones and other things like that, and just help us, you know, do all the things that go into helping us make this podcast for you and start these great conversations. So I'm half of myself. Thank you so much to our wonderful guests and wonderful co host. Thank you to you all for listening. We have spoken