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.
Question of Smoke 