Avengers: Endgame SPOILER THREAD

Morrus · May 9, 2019

Could they use the stones to bring Stark back?

MarkB · May 9, 2019

Morrus said:
Could they use the stones to bring Stark back?

The only people they bring back via the stones are the Snapped, and as I recall it's suggested at some point that they can't bring back people who were outright killed via other means.

Besides, using the stones is what killed Stark. Whoever used them to bring him back would likely suffer the same fate.

Janx · May 9, 2019

Hussar said:
And with a Black Widow movie coming, is she really dead?

I heard it was a back-history movie. So back before she was dead.

Janx · May 9, 2019

Morrus said:
So did anybody die in that massive battle at the end (other than Iron Man)?

Iron Man
Vision didn't come back (died pre-snap)
Natasha

NPCs.

Many Bothans. Notice how there was not a disclaimer about "No Bothans were hurt or killed in the making of this film."

Hussar · May 9, 2019

Umbran said:
Yeah. She literally fights her way to jump off a cliff and straight into the fridge.

Yeah, no. A female character dying is not "fridging" the character. Fridging means that you are providing a male protagonist a motivation that is entirely based on the needless killing off of a love interest character. Black Widow dying was neither needless (as someone had to die, be it BW or Hawkeye), nor does it provide any real motivation for the male protagonist(s). It's not like they suddenly want to stop Thanos because Black Widow died.

While I can see that a particular interpretation of Black Widow's death might be problematic, this particular issue isn't one of the problems.

The notion that the character is "disposable" is also stretching pretty hard. Professor Hulk makes a point of saying that he tried to bring her back with the Stones. IOW, he lost an arm trying to bring her back. Hardly seems "disposable" to me. And, as far as "she's a monster because she can't have kids" that's also missing the point. The audience is supposed to look at that and have the same reaction that every other character has - she's wrong. She's not a monster.

I think folks might be trying just a tad too hard to find interpretations that fit a specific narrative by cherry picking examples and ignoring the rest of the movies.

Umbran · May 10, 2019

Hussar said:
Yeah, no. A female character dying is not "fridging" the character. Fridging means that you are providing a male protagonist a motivation that is entirely based on the needless killing off of a love interest character.

1) While they are not romantically involved, there is a love between them, or her sacrifice would not have worked. 2) Hawkeye wanted to die. His stint as Ronin is him basically going out to kill people until one of them finally gets him. Her death makes it so he *has* to keep going on, or her death is in vain.

Sounds like giving a male character a motivation to me.

Note, also - two out of two people sacrificed to get the stone are women. And they do it so men can get the stone, and go do big things with them. The sacrifice is very much used as 'kill a female character so the male character is enabled to do what they do'. So, I think the fridging point has merit.

Black Widow dying was neither needless (as someone had to die, be it BW or Hawkeye)

Setting up the plot specifically with "someone dies here" and only using it on women who have a love-relationship with a male character, and claiming it isn't fridging is kind of like saying something really snarky, but claiming it is okay because you put a smilie face on it.

The movies are still good, but this isn't their finest moment.

While I can see that a particular interpretation of Black Widow's death might be problematic, this particular issue isn't one of the problems.

And, as far as "she's a monster because she can't have kids" that's also missing the point. The audience is supposed to look at that and have the same reaction that every other character has - she's wrong. She's not a monster.

With respect, you are missing part of the point of the pushback on this.

The issue isn't about her feeling she's a monster, and being wrong about that. I mean, yeah, she's not shown to be a person with flawed judgement, so suddenly she's wrong about this one thing? But, okay, we can swallow that.

The issue is that it is positioned and presented such that, for however many people she has killed, that isn't what makes her a monster. In her eyes, not being able to have babies is what makes her a monster. Now, that's a thought you could spend some time with, and maybe work it around and have *her* come to he conclusion that's she's wrong, and that's fine. But, they don't have time to do that. They just dump it out there, and leave her with it.

I know a woman who is barren. Can't have kids. It is kind of a sore spot for her. She left the theater in tears when those lines came out in Ultron. Another woman I know had her tubes tied, for personal reasons. That scene, suggesting that a powerful woman - her representation in that movie - feels that what makes her a real person is her womb, made her angry.

*DO NOT* tell me how these women were "supposed to" feel there. They felt as they felt - and those feelings were valid. The film makers didn't think enough about how those words could come across to the audience. Having made that error, they should have learned from it, but apparently didn't.

Hussar · May 10, 2019

Umbran said:
1) While they are not romantically involved, there is a love between them, or her sacrifice would not have worked. 2) Hawkeye wanted to die. His stint as Ronin is him basically going out to kill people until one of them finally gets him. Her death makes it so he *has* to keep going on, or her death is in vain.

Sounds like giving a male character a motivation to me.

Umm, they were sent to retrieve the stone. They already had motivation. The death of Black Widow in no way motivates Hawkeye to do anything. Still not seeing it.

Note, also - two out of two people sacrificed to get the stone are women. And they do it so men can get the stone, and go do big things with them. The sacrifice is very much used as 'kill a female character so the male character is enabled to do what they do'. So, I think the fridging point has merit.

Again, this is reaching pretty hard. Fridging is a very, very specific trope. It's when you kill off the female character pointlessly for the sole purpose of motivating the male protagonist. That is very much not true here in any, way, shape or form. Thanos didn't decide to do the snap because he killed Gamora, nor did he decide to get the stones because he killed Gamora. He killed Gamora because he had to kill something he loved in order to get the stones. Hawkeye doesn't even get that much. Black Widow kills herself. She sacrifices herself for the greater good because she believes that Hawkeye has to return to his lost family. She can never get a family back. This way, she gets to reunite a family, go out a big bloody hero and achieve her goals.

Again, not seeing the problem.

Setting up the plot specifically with "someone dies here" and only using it on women who have a love-relationship with a male character, and claiming it isn't fridging is kind of like saying something really snarky, but claiming it is okay because you put a smilie face on it.

The movies are still good, but this isn't their finest moment.

While I can see that a particular interpretation of Black Widow's death might be problematic, this particular issue isn't one of the problems.

Yeah, only if we reach really, really hard to find interpretations that fit a specific narrative and misapply tropes. Black Widow dies to save a family. How else would you expect Black Widow, the character that BECOMES the hero Black Widow because of destroying a family, to die?

With respect, you are missing part of the point of the pushback on this.

The issue isn't about her feeling she's a monster, and being wrong about that. I mean, yeah, she's not shown to be a person with flawed judgement, so suddenly she's wrong about this one thing? But, okay, we can swallow that.

The issue is that it is positioned and presented such that, for however many people she has killed, that isn't what makes her a monster. In her eyes, not being able to have babies is what makes her a monster. Now, that's a thought you could spend some time with, and maybe work it around and have *her* come to he conclusion that's she's wrong, and that's fine. But, they don't have time to do that. They just dump it out there, and leave her with it.

I know a woman who is barren. Can't have kids. It is kind of a sore spot for her. She left the theater in tears when those lines came out in Ultron. Another woman I know had her tubes tied, for personal reasons. That scene, suggesting that a powerful woman - her representation in that movie - feels that what makes her a real person is her womb, made her angry.

*DO NOT* tell me how these women were "supposed to" feel there. They felt as they felt - and those feelings were valid. The film makers didn't think enough about how those words could come across to the audience. Having made that error, they should have learned from it, but apparently didn't.

Are you seriously saying that this is a position that no woman would ever take? Really? That being unable to have children is something that would never cause any woman to question herself? Because, well, there's a rather large amount of research and whatnot that would tell you differently.

But, the point is, and it's hammered home that SHE'S WRONG. She's never presented as being right in this. She feels this way, but, those feelings are not supported by anything else. She's a hero in the movies who has overcome her past to become the leader of the Avengers, keeping the world together when everyone else has buggered off to do their own thing.

Heck, I'll see your anecdote with one of my one, where friends have had their tubes tied and reacted EXACTLY the same way as Black Widow. I'd say it's a lot more important to show that despite losing the ability to have children, you can still be a hero that everyone loves and looks up to. Remember, two characters - Banner and Hawkeye are shown to show great affection for Black Widow. The other female characters all look up to her and treat her as an equal or a superior even. At no point is she shown to be anything less than a hero, regardless of her ability to have children.

I'd say that's a much, much more powerful message to send out there than trying to claim that her death is "fridging". That's so disrespectful to the character and what the character does. You're basically saying that her sacrifice is pointless and completely outside of her control. Which, frankly, is the opposite of the truth.

Dannyalcatraz · May 10, 2019

I’m thinking that the pushback is a result of feeling that “barren = monster” is pretty lazy, male-centric writing, considering some of the things the character would have done in her history as a former KGB agent and one of the most talented spies and assassins in the entire world.

Certainly someone like that has some pretty nasty secrets and made decisions that resulted in homicides by her own hand, some of which would require some extremely warped ethics to justify to herself.

MarkB · May 10, 2019

Dannyalcatraz said:
I’m thinking that the pushback is a result of feeling that “barren = monster” is pretty lazy, male-centric writing, considering some of the things the character would have done in her history as a former KGB agent and one of the most talented spies and assassins in the entire world.

Certainly someone like that has some pretty nasty secrets and made decisions that resulted in homicides by her own hand, some of which would require some extremely warped ethics to justify to herself.

Perhaps they chose to go with that precisely because it's a completely forgivable 'sin' in the eyes of the audience, whereas some of the crimes you allude to would have left many audience members convinced that she truly could not be redeemed.

Dannyalcatraz · May 10, 2019

MarkB said:
Perhaps they chose to go with that precisely because it's a completely forgivable 'sin' in the eyes of the audience, whereas some of the crimes you allude to would have left many audience members convinced that she truly could not be redeemed.

...and yet we have all the other movies indicating otherwise. Questions of religious redemption and the requirements therefor notwithstanding, how many times does a shady character have to save literally millions of people (or more) before we start thinking he or she is on a path of atonement?