[ SECRET POST #4462 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4462 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 53 secrets from Secret Submission Post #639.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

09. https://i.imgur.com/NKZUnC9.png

[(Anonymous)]

I'm sure that what you say is the intention, but it was really, really clumsily phrased in a way that makes it entirely too easy to interpret it the other way and I don't think you can really blame anyone for doing so. It's on the people who made it that way, not the fans.

[(Anonymous)]

the sheer fact that we keep having these threads trying to figure out what the fuck she was actually supposed to mean kinda shows that the writing was super shitty and failed to convey whatever they were aiming for clearly

I'm sure no one in the writer's room was sitting there like "yeah, women are monsters if they can't have babies" but...execution matters. what you think was the best version of what they were clumsily gesturing toward =/= the actual dialogue in a movie made by the richest studio in the world, and if they couldn't be bothered to shell out for one more editing pass, they deserve to be dragged for the deeply clumsy result

[(Anonymous)]

IA. I think people have misinterpreted it... but I can see how and why they did it. It's sloppy writing.

[(Anonymous)]

While I'm sure that your take is what the writers were going for, it is still an incredibly clunky piece of dialogue.

Also, Bruce needs to get over himself, but I'm never going to be a fan of the "Oh yeah, well my life sucks worse so nyah" tactic of getting him there.

[(Anonymous)]

From someone who has not watched the movie, reading the actual script, I have no idea what she's talking about there.

How does being sterilized by a group that believes (idiotically?) that children are the only thing that could possibly supercede a mission, (forget every other possible reason to defect, 'cause children > all) make anybody a monster?

The only logical thing I get from the actual script is "I chose to be sterilized so that killing would be easier, therefore I am a monster, because being sterilized for that reason is bad"? Except that only makes sense if you believe or agree that some thing of intrinsic value was lost via sterilization, which it seems she does and the movie agrees with that position?

What is that dialogue even

[(Anonymous)]

I think the intent is "I was broken down and completely rebuilt to optimize my killing power, and sometimes that makes me feel like a monster"

Or something along those lines

[(Anonymous)]

As one of the few people who haven't seen all of the Avengers movies, it...all sounds like the same thing to me, anon. Maybe my reading comprehension is bad this morning, but 'I can't have babies so I did bad things' just sounds like somehow kids would have made the difference from doing terrible things or not. Either way, that has some pretty awful implications-especially coming from a female character.

[(Anonymous)]

From the secret, I think OP interprets Nat as saying "I believed not having kids meant it was okay to do bad things, but now I feel that belief was very wrong and I think believing that made me a monster." It's still hard to see how the connection was made between no kids and doing bad things, though. It's considered a thing that you would want to make the world a better place for your children, but that doesn't translate to wanting to actively make the world a shittier place if you don't have kids. I could imagine someone saying they didn't care about climate change because they weren't leaving descendants to live with it, but it's a big leap to "Assassination is OK."

Besides, if she was raised to believe her missions were for the greater good, I don't see how there would have been a connection between not having kids and doing bad things. She would have thought what she did would benefit children.

[(Anonymous)]

I've shipped them since the first Avengers movie and it makes me so sad how I sort of got them in canon (doesn't happen a lot with my ships), but everyone in fandom absolutely hated it (I mean, I'm not the biggest fan of that scene, but I interpreted it the same way as you did OP the first time I watched it... and then I went online). Still sad. :(

[(Anonymous)]

+1

[(Anonymous)]

Same :(

[(Anonymous)]

Me, too.

[(Anonymous)]

A-fucking-men, OP.

[(Anonymous)]

OK but...either interpretation is still misogynistic and a disservice to the character, so...

[ninety6tears]

Personally I can't say my ability to bear children has ever defined my moral compass, and I just really HIGHLY doubt that a guy would make a guy character feel that over shooting blanks.

[nightscale]

I thought the dialogue was so goddamn clunky that while I didn't get the 'can't have kids=monster' exactly from it I absolutely see where others were coming from, it was just really poorly written and executed.

I agree, for the most part.

[(Anonymous)]

It would read a lot better, though, if instead of "The one thing", it was "Something". Then it would be clear it was just a factor, part of the equation to becoming a more efficient killer. Especially since she obviously found something else that mattered more than the mission, otherwise she wouldn't have defected.

I'm confused

[(Anonymous)]

Because your interpretation is essentially the same thing and still sketch as hell? Honestly I don't know why they included this bit at all, and I don't think there is a way to interpret the actual script without it being misogynistic and sketchy.

[(Anonymous)]

It's clunky writing that puts the emphasis on the wrong part. It's six statements focusing on being sterilized, and only one about the monstrous act - killing. And Natasha's feelings on that are left to be inferred, she needed to explain for the viewers benefit how sterilization affected her beliefs and made her do monstrous things. The dialogue went from A to C without hitting B.

And also, it's kind of weird to not go in depth with it because her past as an assassin is part of her arc in The Avengers with the whole red in my ledger thing. She frames her past as a moral debt she's working to pay off and readily admits it. Angst over her past doesn't really need to be connected to her sterility at all. And IIRC, it comes up because Bruce is using his sterility as a reason not to be in a relationship with him, to which the reply really ought to be: "I also can't have children, so that isn't going to be a big problem."

[(Anonymous)]

Agreed that it seems unnecessary. They already established that she feels guilty about and is trying to atone for her past and so therefore might reasonably feel like a monster. Why add this on top of it?

[(Anonymous)]

I have nothing to add to the conversation, but I want to compliment OP on a well designed secret. It's laid out really well.

[(Anonymous)]

I kind of hated that scene and the dialogue not because of what it was, but because that's what they used to force this dumpster fire of a ship. And weirdly, that bothers me more than the "true" interpretation of her words.

[(Anonymous)]

I just found it confusing. The "I can't have kids and that makes me a monster" interpretation was the first thing that occurred to me, but I immediately thought "Well, that's probably not what they meant." but I didn't know *what* they meant and then the movie moved on... It's disappointing, because it's not supposed to be a moment of mystery or ambiguity. Nat is explaining her feelings about herself to Bruce, and even if exactly what happened to her in the past isn't entirely clear, there's no reasons why her explanation for how she feels about herself should be made so awkward and confusing for the audience because she's not trying to make it awkward and confusing for Bruce.

[(Anonymous)]

I'VE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR YEARS THANK YOU OP