Miscellaneous
Mar. 7th, 2016 07:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakI. Having rewatched some Revenge of the Sith scenes to refresh my canon knowledge for , um, reasons (and also because it's been many years, and sometimes you tend to misremember things), it strikes me again how Yoda and Mace Windu have a close competition of how to be more clueless re: Anakin (at every age), but Mace wins that competition, barely, in a way that's perfectly reflected in <>The Clone Wars by both how Mace Windu deals with Boba Fett and by what he says to Ahsoka in The Wrong Jedi, the s5 finale. Obvious disclaimer: none of this excuses Anakin's own actions (as Ahsoka demonstrates, y ou can deal with the Council being dicks without becoming the Evil Overlord's chief executioner and committing massacres). But still. I'm thinking of these two gems of Council Jedi behavior in particular:
Anakin: Master Yoda, I'm having visions of someone I'm close to dying. As I had when my mother was tortured to death.
Yoda: eh, chill out, be zen about it, attachment's bad, death is natural, rejoice in them joining the Force. ("Rejoice" is an actual quote.)
competing with:
Anakin: I've just found out my friend the Chancellor whom you've told me to spy on against my strong objections is really the Sith Overlord.
Mace Windu: If that's true, then you'll have earned my trust. (Actual quote.) Just in case you were under the delusion I ever trusted you before. But stay here, because it's not like I trust you enough to make the arrest with me in any case.
Yep, same old Mace Windu who tells Ahsoka in the s5 finale that that the Council abandoning her and kicking her out of the Order had really been a good trial to test her Jedi spirit.
II. Having also rewatched some of the relevant scenes in Iron Man II (haven't seen that one for ages because it's my least favourite of the IM movies) to refresh my hazy memory of what the fanon of Howard Stark having been the worst father of the MCU (unless the writer is a Loki fan, in which case Howard is competing with Odin) is actually built on (in terms of movieverse canon only, not comics which are a different continuity and characterisation), I concluded it's a single scene, Tony's conversation with Nick Fury mid movie where he says that Howard was "cold, calculating and the best day of his life was when he shipped me off to boarding school" (which is why he won't believe Howard was complimentary to him to Nick Fury, whereupon Fury comments that actually he did know Howard better than Tony did because of SHIELD and their shared work there, which is the first time the MCU mentions Howard was one of the co-founders). Which is certainly standard US media Daddy issues providing Neglectful Dad (though definitely not the Worst Father of the MCU, because I'd like to enter Banner Sr. for that competition), which is why I found it a boring cliché to use at the time. (It certainly did not inspire me to write endless hurt/comfort stories about Tony's daddy issues, which it seems to have done for the rest of fandom; especially since the movie itself provides Tony with the paternal praise via recorded message.) It gets more interesting with the Captain America: The First Avenger and Agent Carter reveal that Howard and Tony are/were actually incredibly alike, which made me conclude the one fanfiction story which took its cue from Howard's Agent Carter s1 finale remark to Peggy that everything he created but Steve turned bad/a weapon, and concluded that he had as little contact with Tony as possible because of course he could see the similarities and didn't want Tony to model himself on him, was on to something.
Speaking of Peggy, there's a lot "Aunt Peggy being there in Tony's childhood" fanon now, which has its charm, but the more I think about it, the less likely it is. During Tony's childhood, Peggy not only was the Director of SHIELD (which made her at least as busy as Howard, of not more so), she also had a family of her own (if the photos on the shelves Steve sees when visiting her in The Winter Soldier are anything to go by). I very much doubt she had time to babysit Tony in between. Or even the inclination (if you already had Howard Stark in your life and were Peggy, would you want a second mini edition of same to deal with?). Otoh of course both Jarvises did, hence A.I. JARVIS in the movies, which begs the question: when did they die? Because of the role Obediah Stane played in Tony's life, my guess is before the Starks, Howard and Maria, did.
III. Black Sails links of the article and review kind:
Why Black Sails is officially better than Game of Thrones: I don't go for "better/worse" comparisons between shows myself, but the article certainly has a point in how both shows deal with certain tropes.
Review of episode 3.07.
Eleanor Guthrie meta
More Eleanor Guthrie meta
Anakin: Master Yoda, I'm having visions of someone I'm close to dying. As I had when my mother was tortured to death.
Yoda: eh, chill out, be zen about it, attachment's bad, death is natural, rejoice in them joining the Force. ("Rejoice" is an actual quote.)
competing with:
Anakin: I've just found out my friend the Chancellor whom you've told me to spy on against my strong objections is really the Sith Overlord.
Mace Windu: If that's true, then you'll have earned my trust. (Actual quote.) Just in case you were under the delusion I ever trusted you before. But stay here, because it's not like I trust you enough to make the arrest with me in any case.
Yep, same old Mace Windu who tells Ahsoka in the s5 finale that that the Council abandoning her and kicking her out of the Order had really been a good trial to test her Jedi spirit.
II. Having also rewatched some of the relevant scenes in Iron Man II (haven't seen that one for ages because it's my least favourite of the IM movies) to refresh my hazy memory of what the fanon of Howard Stark having been the worst father of the MCU (unless the writer is a Loki fan, in which case Howard is competing with Odin) is actually built on (in terms of movieverse canon only, not comics which are a different continuity and characterisation), I concluded it's a single scene, Tony's conversation with Nick Fury mid movie where he says that Howard was "cold, calculating and the best day of his life was when he shipped me off to boarding school" (which is why he won't believe Howard was complimentary to him to Nick Fury, whereupon Fury comments that actually he did know Howard better than Tony did because of SHIELD and their shared work there, which is the first time the MCU mentions Howard was one of the co-founders). Which is certainly standard US media Daddy issues providing Neglectful Dad (though definitely not the Worst Father of the MCU, because I'd like to enter Banner Sr. for that competition), which is why I found it a boring cliché to use at the time. (It certainly did not inspire me to write endless hurt/comfort stories about Tony's daddy issues, which it seems to have done for the rest of fandom; especially since the movie itself provides Tony with the paternal praise via recorded message.) It gets more interesting with the Captain America: The First Avenger and Agent Carter reveal that Howard and Tony are/were actually incredibly alike, which made me conclude the one fanfiction story which took its cue from Howard's Agent Carter s1 finale remark to Peggy that everything he created but Steve turned bad/a weapon, and concluded that he had as little contact with Tony as possible because of course he could see the similarities and didn't want Tony to model himself on him, was on to something.
Speaking of Peggy, there's a lot "Aunt Peggy being there in Tony's childhood" fanon now, which has its charm, but the more I think about it, the less likely it is. During Tony's childhood, Peggy not only was the Director of SHIELD (which made her at least as busy as Howard, of not more so), she also had a family of her own (if the photos on the shelves Steve sees when visiting her in The Winter Soldier are anything to go by). I very much doubt she had time to babysit Tony in between. Or even the inclination (if you already had Howard Stark in your life and were Peggy, would you want a second mini edition of same to deal with?). Otoh of course both Jarvises did, hence A.I. JARVIS in the movies, which begs the question: when did they die? Because of the role Obediah Stane played in Tony's life, my guess is before the Starks, Howard and Maria, did.
III. Black Sails links of the article and review kind:
Why Black Sails is officially better than Game of Thrones: I don't go for "better/worse" comparisons between shows myself, but the article certainly has a point in how both shows deal with certain tropes.
Review of episode 3.07.
Eleanor Guthrie meta
More Eleanor Guthrie meta
no subject
Date: 2016-03-07 06:44 am (UTC)I realize that Howard was far from an ideal parent, but the constant "Poor Tony" stuff from fandom has made me completely ambivalent.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-07 07:43 am (UTC)Lastly: I strongly suspect the way Howard actually interacted with Tony, when he did, was like Tony does with the kid in Iron Man III. Which fandom found adorable. (Me too, for that matter.)
no subject
Date: 2016-03-07 09:34 am (UTC)This is not necessarily his fault, mind you. Maybe it's just easier to practice detachment when you live for nine hundred years.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-07 12:29 pm (UTC)Even if you only by movie canon, though, Yoda's "attachment = bad, a Jedi should be above it and above grief" policy is proven as something he himself can't always follow, since of course the multiple Jedi deaths near the end of the movie hit him badly and distress him.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-07 10:00 am (UTC)If anything Howard was probably more involved with his son's live than average for fathers at that time because he could connect with Tony over tinkering so early.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-07 02:31 pm (UTC)Meanwhile, the IM II rewatch also reminded Howard invented a new element, then hid it in a model, trusting Tony to figure it out, which is a weird type of fatherly appreciation, but it's certainly appreciation, and also retrospectively fits with Howard's torn attitude re: his inventions (otoh, making them, otoh, distrusting them).
no subject
Date: 2016-03-07 03:34 pm (UTC)