i can’t stop thinking about the way kara walks into lena’s office as supergirl before confronting edge. she’s in FULL power stance, the most iconic and recognisable pose for a superhero. this is what supergirl looks like when they put her on lunchboxes. why then, if kara spends the episode saving hundreds and thousands of people, do we only see her strike this pose in a corporate office in front of a man who poses minimal physical threat?
it’s because with lena, they position kara as the classic, romantic, superman-like hero. we see this with the bridal carry, another iconic superman image. the way we see supergirl through lena’s eyes is the way that we see clark through lois’s – as a romantic lead. with mon-el and james kara never acted this gallantly, never struck this pose to instil confidence/safety in them or carried them or put her arm around them like a quarterback comforting his pregnant cheerleader girlfriend lmao (which i’ve already talked about in this way a lot!!).
in her relationship with lena, kara is allowed to fulfil the narrative duties that a male hero would, in doing so creating a whole system of romantic lesbian coding by signalling the viewer through iconic superhero imagery that lena is her lois. good morning everyone supercorp rise
I feel like this post symbolises one of the biggest problems with Supergirl as a show. I would adore Kara and Lena to become a thing but we know it won’t happen. The problem here is that Kara is only allowed to fulfil that typical ‘superhero’ roll around another female, because she’s female. Because the show still doesn’t put her on the same level as the males.
with all due respect i don’t think kara not being able to fulfil this romantic role around men somehow makes her lesser than male heroes. this coding between kara and lena shifts the heterosexual paradigm found in lois and clark in lots of important ways. although we’re visually signalled to a damsel/hero dynamic kara and lena offer mutual support to each other and their dynamic is one of equals.
my point is that kara’s heroic in her own way throughout the entire show but this visual language is borrowed from the legacy of superman’s heroism to position kara as lena’s romantic lead. whether or not that eventuates in canon/beyond subtext is beside the point.
Okay but seriously folks – as often as I joke about this movie stirs my loins and as weirdly popular as this text post got a while back, I wanna rap with you all about why the George of the Jungle remake is a pretty important piece of cinema.
It’s literally the only movie I can think of that is based completely around the unheard of “FEMALE gaze.” Granted, while I’m a huge movie buff I’ve not seen every movie ever made. But even so, even if there’s another example of the “female gaze” in cinema that has escaped me it’s still damn impressive that a kids movie from 1997 based on a Jay Ward cartoon from the 60’s managed to turn gender representation in media on it’s fucking ass!
First things first, let’s look at our leading lady and love interest – Ursula, played by Leslie Mann.
Let me just say that while Leslie Mann is adorable and a talented actress, she does look a little less conventional and a little more plain compared to the bombshells that Hollywood likes to churn out. Leslie, in comparison, looks much more like a real women you’d meet on the street. She dresses pretty conservatively and plain throughout the film ; Wearing outfits that are more functional than fashionable for trekking through the jungle, pulling her hair back and so forth. Not that if she was dolled up and more scantily clad it would give her character any less integrity, but can we appreciate how RARE that is in the male dominated industry of film? Just think about all the roads a film about a woman in the jungle COULD have taken but didn’t – no scenes with her clothes strategically ripped or anything! You can say this is a kids movie, intended for children and that’s why the sensuality of the female lead is so downplayed but there are PLENTY of kids movies that handle women in a very objectifying and sexualized manner despite the target audience is pre-pubescent. Like, a disgusting amount. So I don’t think “it’s a kids movie” is why the film doesn’t take ANY, let alone EVERY, opportunity to showcase the main female character’s sex appeal…
…especially considering the sex appeal of the film rests squarely on the well defined shoulders of our male lead, George of the Jungle played by Brendan Fraser in the best god damn shape of his life!
*Homer Simpson Drooling Noises*
Whenever members of the reddit community try to compare the sexualization of women in fiction to the design of characters such as Batman and Superman, I always want to just sit them down and show them this movie. Because THIS is what the female sexual fantasy looks like, and Batman and Superman are male power-fantasies. Look at him – his big blue eyes, his soft hair, his lean, chiseled physique built for dexterity rather than power. He’s wild and free, but gentle. It’s like he fell right out of that steamy romance novel your mom tried to hide from you growing up.
Hell, the whole plot seems to be designed around how damn hot he is! First, for the majority of the film, he wears only a small strip of cloth to cover the dick balls and ass. Everything else is FAIR GAME to drool over for 40 minutes. Then, after he meets Ursula she takes him with her to San Francisco just so we can enjoy him in a well-tailored suit (as seen in the gif set), running around in an open and billowy shirt along side horses while Ursula and all of her friends literally crowd around and make sexual comments about him, and my personal favorite, ditch the loincloth entirely and have him walk around naked while covering his man-bits with various objects while one of Ursula’s very lucky friends oogles him and makes a joke along the lines of “So THAT’S why they call him the ‘KING of the Jungle’…”
And yes, it’s also a very cute and funny little movie. Out of all the movies based on Jay Ward cartoons, it was the most faithful to the fast-paced humor and wit of the original source material (yes even the new Peabody and Sherman movie which honestly I thought was too cutesy-poo.) But that’s not why this movie is popular with the gay community or why we all became women in 1997. It’s just really cool that there’s a film out there where the sensuality of the female form takes a back seat for the oiled up, chiseled, physique of Brendan Fraser (in his prime that is)
One thing to add: in the scene mentioned above where the ladies are watching him in the billowy shirt running with the horses, it pans back to about 50 feet away to two guys in suits at this party looking at the women and one of the guys says, “Man, what is it with women and horses?” So not only does this movie highlight the female gaze, but it blatantly points out that western male sensibilities don’t have a clue what actually appeals to women.
ALSO
he’s non threatening
as mentioned above, he looks built for dexterity rather than power, but he’s still a 6+ foot tall extremely muscular man, and not once are you worried for Ursula when he’s with her
ALSO
let’s take a look at his rival – Lyle is a cravat-wearing trust-fund kid (who, interestingly, is into Ursula’s fortune more than her, which kind of makes this a gender-swapped gold-digger thing too). He’s blonde and Ursula’s mom LOVES him. He’s more uncomfortable and less prepared to cope with the jungle than Ursula is, in his pastels and shiny shoes.
But he talks over Ursula, insists he knows what’s best for her, ignores her autonomy. In spite of the fact that Lyle Van de Groot is a rich, educated, social climber who cares deeply about his clothing and appearances he is a point-by-point checklist of unhealthy masculinity in a way that beefy, inarticulate, uneducated George could never be. Ursula is off on her own doing her own thing and Lyle hires two FUCKING POACHERS to track her down in the middle of the jungle while she’s working (or on vacation? It’s never made clear because he interrupts her before she can explain why she went on the expedition). Lyle ignores the local guides, claiming his experience with a bridge in Maui means the bridge they’re on is safe – which leads to a significant injury for one of the guides. He then tells Ursula the guides are conspiring against him, trying to make himself and his poachers seem safe and the Africans who make up the rest of their party seem dangerous.
Check that body language! A post above points out that we’re never worried about Ursula when she’s around George. That’s because Lyle talks to her like this. Look at his aggressive lean! Look at him literally looking down at her! She’s tilted away from him in the least threatening position possible and he’s so aggressive about whatever point he’s making. When he finds her after he pushed her toward a damned lion he kisses her and she pushes him away. Want a textbook example of gaslighting? Here you go: she says “don’t get all smoochy with me! I remember what happened with that lion” and he responds “What are you talking about? I was fighting that lion the whole time – you were just so terrified you don’t remember.” Then he shoots George! And then he kidnaps Ursula and attempts to force her into marriage!
Now look at how George and Ursula interact (slightly NSFW):
Even though he’s a big strong dude and he thinks he’s doing what’s okay he lets her set the tone for their interactions. He accepts that he’s out of his wheelhouse and even if he doesn’t understand it he does what she says is culturally appropriate. He learns from her! He listens to her! Compare Lyle leaning into Ursula above to this image of George and Ursula talking:
He’s listening to her, all of his attention is on on her, but he’s totally nonthreatening. His torso is turned toward her but he’s not invading her space, his hands are clasped, he’s smiling, and she’s the one leaning into him. Look at that smile she has, look how happy she is to be listened to. Her posture in both images is vulnerable but in this one with George she’s vulnerable because she has chosen to share with him instead of because she feels threatened.
When George rescues Ursula from Lyle at the end of the film it isn’t a typical damsel situation – George doesn’t have a knock-down-drag-out fight with Lyle, he swings into a tree and offers Ursula a hand so she can reach up and save herself (and before he does it he acknowledges how much it’s going to hurt and *whimpers* and looks human and scared). And you’ve gotta remember that George rescues everybody. It’s not just Ursula – he also rescues a parasailer and gets shot rescuing Shep and Ape. He just likes helping, dammit!
AND this movie offers a perfect counter to the “nice guy” thing – Ursula starts engaged to a jerk who her mom thinks is a “nice guy” the moves on to actual nice man George who isn’t *just* nice – he’s also patient, listens to her, has his own skills and talents, is okay with being goofy, has his own social circle and isn’t totally dependent on Ursula, and looks amazing. Ursula doesn’t go with George just because he’s a *nice* guy who rescued her from an asshole, Ursula goes with George because he’s an interesting, fun person who is supportive of her different way of being an interesting, fun person. AND he’s emotionally available. Google image search George of the jungle and see how many smiles you can find, see how many open looks of confusion there are, see how much sadness you can see in George’s face. Now look for images of Lyle. His two expressions are a smirk and cartoonish fear. I know this is a cartoonish kid’s movie, but it is SO powerful that the hero shares his emotions while the villain masks every emotion but fear. Lyle doesn’t want to open up, he doesn’t want to be vulnerable, he wants CONTROL. George wants to learn, to protect people he cares about, to explore new places, to laugh when he’s happy and to be sad when he’s sad, and that he does that while being a broad-shouldered, physically powerful dude who is NOT totally self-involved is just…
Like, look, I didn’t sign on to tumblr dot com for George of the Jungle discourse, but I’m just now realizing that this movie may have done the most for destroying my conception of stoic masculinity and gender roles as a child.
Like
Damn.
2nd reblog because this is even better.
George of the Jungle discourse is definitely what I signed up to this hellsite for me thinks
Does it ever strike you that Cap 2 begins with a challenge from Batroc: who are you without the mask?
And the rest of the movie is literally Steve showing us? Who he is with, and without, the mask? The depths of his humanity? The breadth of his super soldier strength? The limits his body and soul meet time and again and then transcend?
Steve is more than the weapon he wields or the costume he wears. He’s more than the weapon he’s become. And in Cap 2, we begin to see that.
In Cap 3, we see his shield actually GET TAKEN AWAY. We rarely see him in his mask. If the shot of him HOLDING A HELICOPTER IN PLACE armed ONLY WITH HIS DESPERATION AND SUPER STRENGTH is any indication, we’ll see more of plain clothesed Steve, fighting massive battles in just very tight t shirts and an earnest expression.
In the end, Steve is my favorite because we see his humanity and struggle in everything he does. Even in his physical prowess–it’d be so easy to portray his feats of strength with a casualness meant to highlight just how powerful he is. Instead, you see him strain. You see his muscles bulge and his jaw grit and you see uncertainty and determination war on his face. You see him WIN against all odds, and the sheer impossibility of odds are what make the victory so breathtaking.
Behind and without the mask is Steve Rogers, not Captain America. Unluckily for Batroc, and other villains, that’s still a pretty f*cking amazing hero to contend with.
Steve Rogers isn’t a hero because he’s Captain America. Captain America is a hero because he’s Steve Rogers.
thor is the friend you call when you wanna do something and all your other friends think it’s boring
you could be like “hey, thor, do you wanna take a knitting class with me?” and he’d say sure because he likes learning new midgardian things and he loves you and he’s canonically one of those people that likes seeing the smiles on other people’s faces when they’re doing something they really love to do
The great thing about Thor? He probably loves that shit. Intricate patterns and quite contemplation and STABBING PEOPLE THINGS. His mother ends up with delicately spun Lace Knit shawls, and Jane has at LEAST one knitted lab coat and like seventy sweaters.
Cooking classes mean FOOD.
Reading circles? Thor is in like eight.
Bowling? The man throws things for a living. He can and will cheer you on. If there’s beer? Double down on that Asgardian good cheer.
Painting? He’s probably Steves ‘painting in the park’ buddy because Jane likes the park for reading new theories or ranting at Tony about gobledygook quantum physics.
Thor is the ultimate social butterfly, and once you show him the Cool Thing you like to do? He insists on learning it, if only so you have someone marginally knowlegable to geek out with.
He’s also the ine that you can count on for two AM tuna fish sandwiches and philosophy.
Daredevil, aka Matt Murdock, should be either Latinx or Filipino in all modern incarnations of the character and them’s the facts
I don’t disagree, but I’m wondering if you have specific reasoning?
Oh yes, yes I do.
Daredevil the show is full of anachronisms that come with being a fairly direct modern adaptation of a piece of work from the 1960′s, most notably the fact that Hell’s Kitchen has gentrified. IMO, though, the biggest anachronism, is Matt’s ethnicity.
In the original comics, Matt is Irish American. Being a second generation Irish-American in the 1960′s meant was a LOT different than being a second-generation Irish American in 2017, and a lot of the things that were important about Matt being Irish in the originals are better represented if he were
Because Matt IS an immigrants story- the story of being the 2nd generation (his mother immigrated young in one of the comics I read? IDK, his dad is really Irish-AMERICAN, but the point still stands.) The one who actually “makes it” to fully blend into American culture, the one who lives goes to a fancy university and works a white-collar job in a suit. That divide between the way he was raised, and the circles he works in now, still as a hero for the working person but surrounded by wealth and the upper class- that makes up a really interesting segment of his character.
Matt’s mother was a young woman who slipped through the medical industries cracks and suffered from acute postpartum depression. He’s raised by a single father who makes ends meet by boxing, who instills a strong work ethic in him but dreams of him “rising above.” He has a chance to become very wealthy and both literally and figuratively move from where he was raised, but he chooses to stay and fight for it, because of what a formative place it is for him.
He’s also super Catholic. (Made even more Catholic, I would argue as a practicing one, by how generally mediocre he is at being Catholic.) And that’s really tied into his Dad and his family and were they’re from.
(I’m not saying that there still aren’t Irish Americans that fit this profile. I’m just saying that there are currently a lot more Latinx and Filipinos who do, and that it would provide amazing representation and breathe new life into the character in a way that’s really fitting with his original. Probability wise, if you were to find a young, Catholic, working class lawyer with a background in boxing, he wouldn’t be white. )
The reason I suggested he be either Filipino or Latinx is because they are the some of the largest groups of recent immigrant Catholics, and have strong boxing cultures. Matt could technically be Syrian Catholic or Samoan or Indian or Rwandan. Personally, my grandfather was a Filipino boxer, so I have some skin in this game.
Long story short, I think race bending Matt actually brings him closer to his Irish origins and honors them more, and I am ready to welcome the age of Mateo Miguel Munoz!
That’s so true! I’m so down with that!!! And the world would also have one less white saviour.
I was thinking more Italian, myself, based on immigration patterns of my own family. I was thinking a darker Italian though.
But yes!!! Thank you for taking the time to explain your reasoning. Hopefully marvel will adapt this at some point.
❤ ❤ ❤
In their effort to modernize and diversify the show to match modern NYC w/out doing the same to Matt they’ve made SUCH a white savior complex, that and the Hand Plotline that I will Not Mention BEcause I Hate It with the Fire of A Thousand Suns and the Only Good THing It Brought Us was Elektra.
They’ve started race bending characters, which is nice, but they’ve yet to do it to any main characters so even though it would make all practical sense I think we’ve got white Matt for the foreseeable future
Ohhh, if you haven’t hear of her you might really like Helena Bertinelli, the Black-Sicillian Catholic vigilante queen of my heart. Truly she is #everything and if DC wanted to give us nice things she’d have a full series
I love this, so much!!! ❤ My only criticism is that it should be Muñoz, instead of Munoz (the ñ is so pretty and has such a nice ring). Also, you can bet he is all the time correcting the mispelling, especially when done in any kind of official records, and he doesn’t let anyone say “can I call you Matt? is easier to pronounce?” And he’s there like “my name’s Mateo” (and his friends would call him Mati, like isn’t that cute? *3*)
At the beginning of this season we see Kara obviously still mourning the loss of Mon-el, the whole episode in fact is a reiteration of the idea that Kara just *won’t get over him*, that Kara Danvers is weak, useless, broken by grief, and the only thing left to do is is to be Supergirl, the girl of steel, someone who will survive the loss of a loved one because she’s more-than-human.
But the thing is, Kara’s never had the chance to experience what it feels to really be Mon-el’s girlfriend without haste, drama, or the outside pressure!
She was initially attracted to him because he was a fellow alien, a boy with powers, someone other than Kal-el with whom to share memories of Krypton and other worlds far away.
She took him under her wing and trained him, tried to teach him how to be a hero, how to blend in with humans, how to try to have a normal life on Earth.
She was badgered into a relationship with him at his insistence, and at the hand of everybody around Kara slowly taking a step back and leaving her alone, with no other options but to give in.
And in the end she was betrayed by the revelation he was in fact the prince of Daxam, once his parents showed up to bring him back.
Before she had a chance to live out her boring happy relationship with him, he was poisoned and gone, banished to the phantom zone, Kara on Earth was left to wonder and daydream.
In the very first scene we see her roaming green fields of wheat, some Kryptonian version of the Elysian Fields, Mon-el is there and they’re happy. We find out right away that this is a fantasy, this is what Kara’s been obsessing about since he’s been gone.
It’s clear at this point that Kara is mourning an idealised version of him: the Mon-el we see in that vision is no longer him but “the love that could’ve been” (if only he hadn’t been selfish, utterly uninterested in using his powers for good, if only he hadn’t lied about being the prince of Daxam, if only he hadn’t been poisoned in an effort to rid the world of the Daxamite invaders, etc)
In the meantime Cat is gone too. She came back from a year of hanging out in internet-connected yurts only to put all of her shares of CatCo in a blind trust fund and go follow Olivia in Washington.
In a moment where Kara’s life is in shambles, where she needs to seek refuge in normality and routine to overcome her grief, Cat leaves her once again.
We see Kara smile when she sees her on tv, but we also see Kara quit her job at CatCo on a whim: she doesn’t seem to care about being a reporter anymore, and why should she, now that the person who used to read all of her articles isn’t even the owner of CatCo anymore?
In one of my favourite scenes of the episode Alex challenges her decision to leave her job,
Alex: Since when do you quit?
Kara: CatCo isn’t the point for me anymore.
Alex: You spent years working your way up to be a reporter.
Kara: And it was a waste of time.
Alex: I would love to see you tell Cat Grant that.
Kara: Cat moved on. Why can’t I?
This tells us two things:
1. Kara’s bitter as hell about Cat leaving CatCo, this is no longer a leave of absence, this is giving up the project of her lifetime: in Kara’s eyes, Cat has “moved on”.
2. If Cat’s no longer the boss to impress, a mentor to look up to, then there is literally nothing keeping Kara tied to CatCo as a business, and perhaps even journalism as a profession.
“Kara Danvers sucks” she yells at Alex, and indeed Kara Danvers’s life does suck, her boyfriend is gone and when she needed her the most Cat has left her alone.
Kara’s bitterness and brooding tells us that she’s lost, looking for an anchor. Cat used to be her anchor, last season that anchor was the boy from Daxam, and with him gone, Kara’s only option is to retreat into what she knows best: Supergirl.
Which brings us to my main point: Kara’s grief is not about Mon-el, to an extent it isn’t even about Cat specifically. Kara’s grief is first and foremost about Krypton, about the life she was supposed to have, about getting stuck on the way to Earth and not being able to help Kal-el grow up, about the universe always incessantly throwing a spanner in the works.
It’s about loss, abandonment, it’s about the life that could’ve been, all the chances that she was denied. It’s the kind of frustration that even the strongest hero on earth can’t do anything about.
let’s start with LENA LUTHOR JUST WANTS TO SAVE THE WORLD, OKAY? SHE WANTS TO CURE CANCER AND ELIMINATE FAMINE AND SOLVE CLIMATE CHANGE AND SAVE THE DAMN FUCKING WORLD GET OUT OF MY UNIVERSE.
do you ever think about the billions of Kryptonians who died when Krypton exploded, completely blindsided, never even knowing that this was a possibility. only kara and kal-el getting out in time, astra, a general being sentenced to the phantom zone, where some of the worst criminals in the galaxy are sent since krypton doesn’t have a death penalty, for trying to get the information out there and not complying with the counsel’s orders to be passive, to just let it happen.
Almost no one knew that Krypton was about to die. Hell who knows for how long Kara knew, or if she was even told at all before they sent her in that pod. Kara would have wanted to tell everyone and well–look at what they did to Astra.
Lmao “kryptonians can be arrogant” trust me i think kara learned that
lesson long ago, while she watched everything and everyone she ever
cared about go up in a swirling ball of flames (and if she didn’t know
as a child? she now has alura’s hologram. “why am i the only survivor,
besides kal-el” is something she has definitely wondered)
Kara is someone who watched a world die because politicians decided to play god, to decide exactly what her people could and couldn’t know about their own livelihood. Do you ever think about in that context, Kara wanting to be a reporter–someone who serves the public, someone who reveals secrets powerful people do not want the world to know–and remember that Kara has very different reasons than her cousin for following that career path?
yes to all of that. to all of karas pain, and give me the plot where kara really comes to understand why she wanted to become a reporter in the first place. give me kara the reporter seeing a small story and chasing it and chasing it until all of a sudden she’s face to face with exactly the kind of story powerful people do not want told and give me kara having this full realization as she’s face to face with the complexities of the story she’s got in her hands.
and give me kara challenged – not just by the powerful people who do not want this story told, but challenged morally. give me a storyline that is focused on kara the reporter understanding that with great power (in this case her voice, her way with words, her platform within catco) comes great responsibility. and how thats not a lesson she thought she wouldn’t have to learn again, not after learning to control literal superhuman powers.
and god, i honestly just want a plot where kara gets to acknowledge her trauma and the effects that it has on her. i want kara to be able to talk about her pain and her past and her every day struggle to be good. i want, in aforementioned big plot, i want kara to face her anger and see her anger can be dangerous, but it can also be her strength. a lesson she sees learned before, and not one she thought she would have to learn again.
and honestly in this context? kara going around snapper and publishing her story makes sense. “there is a story that people need to know about for their own safety. and i’m being blocked.” like. of course she’s going to go rogue, better for her to make a mistake and be wrong than for innocents to die.
(and even more ironic? Going around her superior, doing exactly what she thinks is right, getting fired from her job?
wait seriously????? people were salty about this?!
supergirl fandom: in which it’s totally cool for kara to pose as cat in a letter to cat’s estranged son but not cool for james to be like “hey maybe basic human rights are called basic for a reason” apparently
literally no one thought this?
not so much in meta, but certainly in gifsets and sort of as a comparison to other stuff Kara has done for Cat, lumped in, I’ve seen implicit (and, rarely I admit but part of that is sample size/who i follow) support of Kara’s well-intended meddling
and like. as Cat’s friend I can buy it. but as Cat’s employee, I really can’t?
i’m not trying to go after anyone. i think fandom’s response just a reflection of the show’s own ambivalence. Supergirl The Series still trying to find its own moral compass, and i’m super pleased that they literally had an entire episode about that! but it often seems like the show wants to sort of have its cake and eat it too in terms of ~the discourse~ in a way that isn’t feasible. Kara, as a protagonist, can’t always be right. but Supergirl, a concept, kind of needs to be because she’s Better Than That. and even now that they’re genuinely exploring that on a thematic and plot level, there’s still a sort of… implied approval of Kara’s actions both on the show and in fandom that’s largely inescapable. the question is how we deal with it.
… unless you meant no one thought James was out of line. I’m like a month behind so I never saw any actual reactions to the episode in real time and haven’t gone back through my likes to unearth anything i put aside blind for fear of spoiling myself yet, so. if that is the case then complaint redacted.
i did mean james being out of line, because yeah, people fanwanked the hell out of kara sending that letter, but i also think i’ll leave you to watch this week’s episode before i say any more about what you’ve said there.
as for james calling the DEO guantanamo bay, i basically passed out from happiness. any other opinions on that can go jump in a lake.
ok see part of what i see as the problem with James (i mean a lot of this applies for Winn too, don’t get me wrong, except with winn it’s problems, as in very much plural and there are too many to name) is that he only complained about this treatment for the unpowered human, and once they let Lord go he didn’t bring it up again. Not about Leslie, not about any of the aliens, including Kara’s aunt even when they tortured her (and again, this completely goes for Winn too, but there’s even more i can say about winn but that’s a conversation for a different time).
For some reason, James thinks that Lord isn’t the threat comparable to
all the other prisoners the DEO has in custody and he’s right: he’s much, much worse.
The DEO (namely Alex) pulled Maxwell Lord off the street when it wasn’t their jurisdiction, and yeah that’s gonna bite them in the ass, and it might have been the right call because they couldn’t have woken up Kara without his tech expertise, but there’s going to be consequences for those actions, and there should be, because actions have consequences. And the thing about this is that it’s easy for James to say Kara needs to Be Better and lecture about all of thisbut here’s the thing. James is the one who doesn’t have to pay for his ideals.
Because there has been consequences for letting Maxwell Lord go. We’ve just seen the start last episode, because the only reason Red Kryptonite ever existed or affected Kara was because he created it. If he was still locked up, Kara wouldn’t have had her mind warped, her choices and agency taken away from her. Kara is the one who will pay the price for James’s ideals. Even with Cat, it’s her reputation and name out there when she critiques/endorses/denounces Kara, she’s the one who just got threw out of a building, she knows that it might happen again, she’s right there with her as Kara goes up against Livewire. Alex is the one who’s going to put herself in the line of fire in an attempt to protect Kara and J’onn, and then J’onn was the one to transform in an attempt to protect Alex and Kara from herself. They are the ones experiencing the consequences for their ideals, because that’s part of why they’re meeting people with ideals in high risk jobs are unusual-they are lofty and moral and so so so hard to maintain because there’s a price to pay if you have them.
Part of James’s problem is that he’s acting as if things hasn’t really changed since he’s left Metropolis. He’s not in the thick of it really anymore, no longer a photojournalist out in the field, risking his life right next to Superman because in that situation, he would be. Except for the time Kara’s powers blew out, and the kind of corporate espionage thing with Catco, he’s been in the office all the times Kara has been putting herself into danger (so has winn, but this isn’t about him). And he’s been putting Kara a bit on a pedestal, treating her a little like a female clark too, because he knew she was capable of anger, sure, but he didn’t know the extent of that anger, he’s never seen her in the field or seen her use heat vision.
They’ve discussed anger but I don’t think it really registers with James, just that quote that’s like “you are so brave and quiet i forget you are suffering,” i think he’s just so used to Clark, who sure might have a little bit of sadness or anger about what happened to Krypton, but there’s a huge difference between being angry aboutlosing a concept, and actually losing something that you’ve known and loved, and we all joke that Kara’s a huge puppy, but we also know that she’s more than that and I’m not sure if James really understood that until this episode.
also when kara sent that letter, she knew there’d be consequences. she took the risk any way “i’m going to make your life a living hell” “it’s worth it. family always is.” she was kind of out of line, but she didn’t blame it on anyone else, and the only one who’d suffer from writing the letter is Kara herself.
I have a theory that the valued quality of each of the four Houses isn’t really about the personality of its students.
The valued quality of each of the four Houses has to do with how they perceive magic.
Stick with me a second: Hogwarts is a school to study magic. Magic as Hogwarts teaches it can be seen as many things: a natural talent, a gift, a weapon, etc.
So how you believe magic should be used will both reflect your personality and change how you handle that power.
“Their daring, nerve, and chivalry set Gryffindors apart,” Gryffindors perceive magic as a weapon. Gryffindors tend to excel in aggressive forms of magic, like offensive and defensive spells, and they are good at dueling. But a true Gryffindor knows that the power is a responsibility, and so they must always use their powers to stand up for what’s right. They are the sword of the righteous, which makes them as good at Defense Against the Dark Arts as they are at combat magic.
Hufflepuffs believe that magic is a gift and that the best gifts are to be given away. Hufflepuffs, “loyal and just,” would naturally abhor the idea of jealously guarding magic or using it to hurt someone else. So Hufflepuffs share their magic to benefit of Muggles, like the Fat Friar, to protect the overlooked, like Newt Scamander with his creatures, or to oppose those who would use magic to torment and bully, like the Hufflepuffs who stood with the DA and the battle of Hogwarts.
Slytherins are the opposite: they believe their magic is a treasure that they have been entrusted to protect. The Slytherin fascination with purity, with advantage, with cunning and secrecy–all of which were perverted by the Death Eaters–comes from the idea that people with magic in their veins have been given something special that it is their duty to protect at all costs. And perhaps they aren’t entirely wrong: power in the wrong hands can be dangerous. And power interfering at will with Muggle affairs is a gross presumption that could turn the course of history. Though the series shows some of the worst that Slytherin can be, “evil,” is not a natural Slytherin tendency. “Cautious,” is.
Ravenclaws believe that magic is an art form, one that is beautiful and should be appreciated and studied for its own sake. If “wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure,” then asking what magic is for is useless. It’s more important to immerse oneself in magic for its own sake. Ravenclaws push the boundaries of magic to see if they can, hence Hermione’s spell experiment on the DA coins being dubbed a Ravenclaw quality, but like Luna Lovegood in the pursuit of extraordinary creatures: they can also be content to plumb the depths of what already exists.
So while you can see where personalities will overlap over Houses, perhaps in Sorting we should be asking ourselves less what we think we are and more what we think we believe.
that’s much more interesting and substantive than “brave, smart, evil, miscellaneous”
Question of Smoke 