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Date: 2015-04-14 01:34 pm (UTC)
selenak: (Henry Hellrung by Imaginary Alice)
From: [personal profile] selenak
Well, by one in the sense that Daredevil does beat people up and threatens them to get information, and mostly gets it. However, I wouldn't say it's unquestioned by the narrative. The hero/villain parallels include not just childhood trauma but also that they're prone to such violence, the priest who becomes Matt's confidant has a conversation with him about whether or not Matt is looking for morally (to him) acceptable way to give into the violence in him, and two of the other good characters ask the obligatory "then what's the difference?" question. Basically the show does the Batman thing where the main character draws the line at killing people but beats them up. It's also clever enough to usually let him face people who are either as good in martial arts as he is or use guns or other weapons (and also are several while he's one), so the rule is that he starts out in an equal or disadvantaged position as opposed to using violence against people clearly weaker than him. The one time he needs intel from a physically weak old man who is one of the main crime leaders and has taken out the guy's bodyguards, the old man in question has a tazer at hand so overpowers him, i.e. the question "would he beat up a weak old man who happens to be a crime czar?" doesn't arise. Oh, and Matt gets the crap beaten out of himself a couple of times, so he's not played as invulnerable, invincible or magically healing.

ETA: In fairness, and thinking about it further, there is one scene in the second episode which you could say as a show, not main character endorsement, because the nurse character is so revolted by the villain du jour's revelling in the future fate of a kidnapped child involving sex trade that she tells not-yet-Daredevil to stab the guy at a particular nerve spot near the eye, and that works (i.e. information is given, kid is saved). But the other times he's alone and the situations are as described above. I think what stops me from seeing this as endorsing torture the way I would if an identical scene were in, say, 24 (where there were a lot of similar scenes even in the two seasons I watched) is that another big theme of the show is police coruption. So there is no "hero does things the institutions are too liberal/soft/whatever to use for the greater good", because the cops have absolutely no problem with behaving this way. Also you have the whole parallel plot thread of Karen, Ben Urich and Foggy doggedly investigating (non violently) which contributes as much to the villain's eventual downfall as Matt's vigilantism does.
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