[ SECRET POST #2527 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2527 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 042 secrets from Secret Submission Post #361.
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

[crunchysunrises]

I strongly suspect that your viewpoint would heavily depend on whether you or your family members are standing in the lee of that building when it collapses.

[(Anonymous)]

If they were, they probably would have ended up equally dead without the intervention of the heroes, given that they were standing in the middle of a supervillain/alien/whatever attack.

[crunchysunrises]

Maybe, maybe not. It would probably depend on whether or not the aliens wanted to raze the place or simply conquer it and keep the locals around more or less intact to run the place.

And regardless, no one is that rational when it comes to the actual, proximate cause of their loved one's death - if Thor drops a building on a handful of people, he'd best expect their living relatives to call him a villainous murderer and campaign for consequences.

[diet_poison]

Wait, are you saying you think the Avengers should have just let the aliens rule on the chance that they wanted to do so peacefully (never mind the legitimacy of wanting political autonomy from a strange group of people)?

And as I pointed out before, just because their irrational response makes it understandable, does NOT make it okay. Thor doesn't deserve to experience legal consequences because of someone's irrational grief response to Thor doing the right thing by saving a bunch of peoples' lives.

[crunchysunrises]

I at no no point said that I thought the aliens should rule. The previous poster said that everyone would've ended up dead without the heroes' intervention. That's a fallacious assumption, as is your assumption that I'm in favor of allowing people to invade your territory.

It's not really irrational to hold a grudge against private individuals who, having been empowered by a random shadow agency that no one knows anything about rather than the leaders of your own government, proceed to rampage through the streets. It's not like the people on the ground are going to have a really thorough understanding of who's there to murder then and who's defending them when both sides are killing them left and right with energy beams and falling masonry.

And that difference in perspective and who knew what when is why Thor and Co are going to get flak - unless Capt. America is a much smoother talker than I think he is.

[(Anonymous)]

Replying, "Maybe, maybe not. It would probably depend on whether or not the aliens wanted to raze the place or simply conquer it and keep the locals around more or less intact to run the place" to the statement, "If they were, they probably would have ended up equally dead without the intervention of the heroes, given that they were standing in the middle of a supervillain/alien/whatever attack" suggests that you wouldn't accept loss of life as a justifiable price to pay in order to prevent a "peaceful" alien occupation - that, unless the heroes are certain that the aliens want to raze the place completely, it would be better not to intervene and risk dropping a building on someone in the course of stopping the alien invasion. If that wasn't what you meant, you should've been more precise.

[crunchysunrises]

It'd be more accurate to say that I believe in look at all the possibilities, rather than jumping to conclusions regarding what would be "best" for the people at ground zero.

Because what's best for them and what's best for the rest of the planet are two very different things. And both you and the original poster seem to be mixing the two things up.

[diet_poison]

It's not really irrational to hold a grudge against private individuals who...proceed to rampage through the streets.

I feel like you're being deliberately obtuse. Let me repeat: The Avengers were NOT rampaging through the streets. The ALIENS were rampaging through the streets, and the Avengers were trying to stop them. It's really important that you understand this difference.

It's not like the people on the ground are going to have a really thorough understanding of who's there to murder then and who's defending them when both sides are killing them left and right with energy beams and falling masonry.

I think it's safe to assume that even if they didn't know in the meantime (and I find it unlikely that "Avengers" v. "weird creepy aliens" is really that difficult of a fight to interpret) they'd have plenty of time to figure out afterward what actually happened before tossing blame around. Like, this is actually way more clear cut than a lot of other fictionalized Good Versus Evil battles. It's pretty obvious who the good guys were, and unless you count Hawkeye's period of being brainwashed (which clearly does not count if you understand what brainwashing is), at no point did any of them do something that made it look like they were not clearly on the side of Good in this fight.

[crunchysunrises]

LOL - I feel like you're being deliberately obtuse too!

You seem to think that everyone in that world is going to share the same perspective of the Avengers that they - and by extension, the narrative and the entirety of the MCU franchise - share.

They aren't.

From their perspective, they were at lunch and people started gratuitously blowing things up and dropping bug things from the sky. And, yeah, a dozen people might have noticed Capt America hauling them out of a bus but, for the majority of the population, there's a bunch of lunatics attempting to murder them for no apparent reason.

It's clear cut from the viewers' perspective because you've spent an hour and a half watching them go through the (secret!) steps, you've got aerial shots and to overhear their comm discussions on how to help people but it certainly wouldn't be obvious from the average citizens' perspective. And no, when stuff goes Very Very Wrong On A Large Scale, it's not immediately obvious to anyone on site what's going on.

[diet_poison]

And this illustrates perfectly my point about the superheroes being a scapegoat. If someone's family member died it's not surprising they'd want someone to "pay" for it, and the people responsible are dead. However, that's an emotional response and it isn't fair or right.

[crunchysunrises]

They're not scapegoats. By and large their private individuals who take matters into their own hands and summarily decide to murder large swathes of the population. It's like your neighbor deciding that, because he has a tank (but possibly not the license for it - and yes, private individuals can own tanks in some U.S. states), he gets to make the rules in your neighborhood and dissenters will be summarily shelled.

There are exceptions, of course, but by and large they're unstable criminals.

[diet_poison]

Wait, are we even talking about the same thing here?

By my understanding, you just compared superheroes who work to defeat villains to someone who causes trouble just because they have power.

This is like saying the Avengers wrecked New York just for the hell of it, and completely ignoring the role Loki and his henchmen had to play.

[crunchysunrises]

a.) You said "superheroes" which is a general term and I responded generally.

b.) Yes, superheroes do generally cause trouble because they have power and the people around them don't.

c.) They're not elected officials, paid law enforcement officers whose allegiance is to the law (and not to their own agendas), or even bound to enforce or respect the laws of their country.

They know it.

And they act like it.

c.) But, specifically considering the Avengers:

- There were several very simple things that the Avengers or SHIELD could've done to avert the invasion without leveling Manhattan. For example:
There's a gap in the narrative during which Loki is rushing toward New York, the Avengers in hot pursuit. It apparently didn't occur to anyone to called ahead and tell any of the law enforcement agencies with branch offices in New York - including the SHIELD branch office, I'd wager - that there were magically deranged people setting up a Doomsday Device on top of Stark Tower and could they please just nip up and stop them? Coulson has already demonstrated SHIELD's ability to break into the Tower and, as the owner of the tower, Tony could certainly have given them access.

Then, there'd be no need for an epic, downtown brawl, especially since the cube and the device were apparently being protected by a lone old scientist. (And, hell, Tony's building security probably should've been able to take him.)

- And while I'm on the subject?
Loki is a Norse god with a small army of human minions, lots of them arguably brainwashed, and a magic cube of infinite power that apparently can't be used, save by complicated technological devices, none of which Loki has and ends up spending most of the film fabricating.

SHIELD has an army of agents, presumably not brainwashed, a billionaire, genius inventor with the world's best war machine as his personal bauble, two super-steroided soldiers (one of which is both a genius and turns into an enormous monster fueled by rage!strength, the other of which seems to be a genuinely good person), and a Norse god of their own.

I hate to say it, but Loki's the scrappy of the piece. And yeah, with that sort of mismatch regarding resources, I'm going to hold SHIELD to a much higher standard of behavior than I would a lone lawman in pirate-run Tortuga.

[diet_poison]

For A and B, I was talking about a specific kind of superheroes, with emphasis being on the Avengers, not superheroes in general. In other words, I was referring to what the secret was talking about, which I suppose I assumed you were doing too. Maybe not? But I'm not talking about "superheroes" who go around and wreck shit for the fun of it (and I would then hesitate to continue calling them superheroes tbh); I'm talking about superheroes who stop violent and destructive villains because it's the right thing to do, which may incur collateral damage either as a result of their necessary actions or as a result of the villain's rampage, or both.

For C, you sound awfully naive if you believe that cops and such are actually generally more noble than superheroes (especially keeping in mind that the later is fictional and often presented as being especially noble).

In regards to your other points:

1. Do you really expect cops to effectively stop Loki?? Also, how much time exactly did they have?

2. Apparently Loki isn't the "scrappy of the piece" considering how much trouble it was to shut him down...

[(Anonymous)]

This is an idiotic argument.

These private individuals [unstable criminals!!!] decide to just up and murder buckets of people. I mean, really. That's what you take away from superheroes.

[crunchysunrises]

Yes. But then, I believe that the law exists for a reason, no one should be held over a fifteen story drop until they squeal, and that citizens have no right to summarily stomp all over the rights of others, citizens or not.

But then, I'm also capable of defending my position with more than "you're stupid for not agreeing with me!" So, you know, I can see where we might have a strong difference of opinion.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

So in your mind, with great power comes the responsibility to stay home and watch alien invasions demolish half the Eastern Seaboard on CNN, because nobody's paying you to do anything about it?

[mechanosapience]

Wow. Way to miss the point.

[crunchysunrises]

Really? Because I think that, as much fun as superheroes are from their own perspective, you're missing how awful they'd be for anyone else's perspective. And I think that's a point that you're missing.

[mechanosapience]

The analogy does not hold. It's really that simple.

[diet_poison]

This is just so mind-boggling. People with superpowers saving millions of lives and keeping widespread local destruction from becoming global destruction...why do you think people would see this as awful????

[(Anonymous)]

holy GOD are you annoying

[nyxelestia]

Okay, if my neighborhood were peaceful and the neighbor suddenly did that, then yeah, I'd be pissed.

However, if some crazy terrorists were suddenly invading my neighborhood and seemingly intent on burning down my home and killing me and my family, then actually, I'd be pretty happy that this crazy guy with a tank was defending our neighborhood from this threat - especially if the only thing he requested in return was to be left alone when he was done or something to that effect. If he destroyed my car in the process, I'd be upset, but I wouldn't blame him.

And, if my family member died because of something he did in the process of stopping the invasion, then yes, I'd likely be upset at first that why did THEY have to die for this cause...but after that, I'd probably be grateful that I and the rest of my family are still alive, and that (at least some of) my friends and neighbors are still alive, and if I'm comparing that to "we're all enslaved and/or dead", then yeah, I'd actually still be grateful that someone stepped in and kept a bad situation from getting worse. Maybe not happy, but still grateful.

[(Anonymous)]

it isn't fair or right

but it's still how life works.

[diet_poison]

I really hate it when people say things like this. They're shitty cop-out justifications for acting in ways that are self-gratifying even if they hurt others. You could tack it on to any number of things, irl or in fiction, that people say is wrong. And, you know, it really misses the point when the entire conversation is basically about whether or not it's right to blame the heroes for the damage. Your entire response boils down to "it's right because it exists"