MCU vs thread....controversy and chaos

[InCali]

DD

 

[Docker2.0]

Taskmaster vs DD:

Taskmaster takes it. Like, its not impossible for Matt to take the odd victory by freak chance, but 9/10, Taskmaster, because she's just better in every way. Between her skills/physicality and gear, Taskmaster was an opponent that Black Widow couldn't beat in a fair fight, and since Black Widow is better than Daredevil by a not-small margin, that is that.

Daredevil

 

[InCali]

Daredevil

Let me guess.......it's a tie.

 

[Batmannerism]

Taskmaster vs DD:

Taskmaster takes it. Like, its not impossible for Matt to take the odd victory by freak chance, but 9/10, Taskmaster, because she's just better in every way. Between her skills/physicality and gear, Taskmaster was an opponent that Black Widow couldn't beat in a fair fight, and since Black Widow is better than Daredevil by a not-small margin, that is that.

Maybe I'm misremembering the Black Widow film - which isn't surprising as I thought it was ****.

Anyway, the way I remember it is that Taskmaster ambushed Nat, hardly a fair fight, and may have had the upper hand in their first confrontation- and not a comprehensive defeat for Nat, either.

Once Nat worked out who she was, it was less about beating TM and more about saving her.

Otherwise I'm struggling to come up with any real fighting feats for Taskmaster that don't really rely on gadgets or her opponent being a moron.

Personal bias may be playing a role here. Also, have we established that Nat is a much better fighter than Daredevil ? The comics would suggest Otherwise in the hand to hand fighting.
I wouldn't have thought there was that much difference- Nat trained by the Black Widow assassin academy, but Matt was trained by Stick, a ninja master.

McU Matt has fought hordes of ninjas and done well with just his fists and a club. Sure Widow fought Chitauri, but with guns, stingers and their own weapons.

Anyway, comcs wise Daredevil beats Taskmaster - in the MCU , based on TM's feats, I can't see her doing much better than 6/10 against him, without having an arsenal of weapons.

Hopefully this won't end in a tie.

 

[InCali]

Maybe I'm misremembering the Black Widow film - which isn't surprising as I thought it was ****.

Anyway, the way I remember it is that Taskmaster ambushed Nat, hardly a fair fight, and may have had the upper hand in their first confrontation- and not a comprehensive defeat for Nat, either.

Once Nat worked out who she was, it was less about beating TM and more about saving her.

Otherwise I'm struggling to come up with any real fighting feats for Taskmaster that don't really rely on gadgets or her opponent being a moron.

Personal bias may be playing a role here. Also, have we established that Nat is a much better fighter than Daredevil ? The comics would suggest Otherwise in the hand to hand fighting.
I wouldn't have thought there was that much difference- Nat trained by the Black Widow assassin academy, but Matt was trained by Stick, a ninja master.

McU Matt has fought hordes of ninjas and done well with just his fists and a club. Sure Widow fought Chitauri, but with guns, stingers and their own weapons.

Anyway, comcs wise Daredevil beats Taskmaster - in the MCU , based on TM's feats, I can't see her doing much better than 6/10 against him, without having an arsenal of weapons.

Hopefully this won't end in a tie.

I think you forget who created this thread......

Comic DD is way more adept than is MCU DD, but I think we're talking about MCU.

 

[Docker2.0]

Let me guess.......it's a tie.

 

[Docker2.0]

Maybe I'm misremembering the Black Widow film - which isn't surprising as I thought it was ****.

Anyway, the way I remember it is that Taskmaster ambushed Nat, hardly a fair fight, and may have had the upper hand in their first confrontation- and not a comprehensive defeat for Nat, either.

Once Nat worked out who she was, it was less about beating TM and more about saving her.

Otherwise I'm struggling to come up with any real fighting feats for Taskmaster that don't really rely on gadgets or her opponent being a moron.

Personal bias may be playing a role here. Also, have we established that Nat is a much better fighter than Daredevil ? The comics would suggest Otherwise in the hand to hand fighting.
I wouldn't have thought there was that much difference- Nat trained by the Black Widow assassin academy, but Matt was trained by Stick, a ninja master.

McU Matt has fought hordes of ninjas and done well with just his fists and a club. Sure Widow fought Chitauri, but with guns, stingers and their own weapons.

Anyway, comcs wise Daredevil beats Taskmaster - in the MCU , based on TM's feats, I can't see her doing much better than 6/10 against him, without having an arsenal of weapons.

Hopefully this won't end in a tie.

We really haven't seen MCU DD yet though. Netflix DD isn't in the same universe. Notice how much more powerful Kingpin is in the MCU. I expect Daredevil to be way more lethal and skilled when he finally does appear.

 

[InCali]

We really haven't seen MCU DD yet though. Netflix DD isn't in the same universe. Notice how much more powerful Kingpin is in the MCU. I expect Daredevil to be way more lethal and skilled when he finally does appear.

Oh.....the way you were throwing around characters, I thought that we were counting Netflix shows.

 

[Docker2.0]

Oh.....the way you were throwing around characters, I thought that we were counting Netflix shows.

They are in the MCU but in the multiverse. We haven't seen Daredevil in the main universe just yet.

 

[InCali]

They are in the MCU but in the multiverse. We haven't seen Daredevil in the main universe just yet.

Oh you are just the most frustrating thing......you have a non-MCU DD in the MCU vs thread. You should be ashamed of yourself.

 

[Batmannerism]

They are in the MCU but in the multiverse. We haven't seen Daredevil in the main universe just yet.

Ummmm, uh, hey mate.. HUGE ****ING SPOILER.....

Spoiler

have you not seen No Way Home ? Matt Murdock is in the film as Peter ( Tom Holland) 's lawyer.

That's the MCU bro, if he exists in the same universe as Tom Holland Spidey, who exists in the same universe as Natasha and Taskmaster.

 

[Luigi]

Daredevil

Comparing their feats, Matthew has come off as the more impressive fighter. Not to mention, he can take one hell of a beating.

 

[InCali]

Ummmm, uh, hey mate.. HUGE ****ING SPOILER.....

Spoiler

have you not seen No Way Home ? Matt Murdock is in the film as Peter ( Tom Holland) 's lawyer.

That's the MCU bro, if he exists in the same universe as Tom Holland Spidey, who exists in the same universe as Natasha and Taskmaster.

Technically not, but I didn’t read your spoiler because I’m pretty sure I know what it is.

Spoiler

He might or might not be Netflix daredevil, but I agree with you

 

[Spider-Aziz]

I honestly find it hard to vote for Netflix characters against MCU characters most of the time. Even if you gave me a Luke Cage vs Hawkeye match I'll give the edge to Hawkeye cause one explosive arrow to the face is enough to send Luke to a semi-coma status. Netflix characters are easy to drop unconscious, so easily they will stay down after the things Natasha brushed off and walked away from in her own movie.

TASKMASTER with absolute ease against the guy who went unconscious when a bullet cracked his helmet.

Sorry to be that guy

 

[Batmannerism]

I honestly find it hard to vote for Netflix characters against MCU characters most of the time. Even if you gave me a Luke Cage vs Hawkeye match I'll give the edge to Hawkeye cause one explosive arrow to the face is enough to send Luke to a semi-coma status. Netflix characters are easy to drop unconscious, so easily they will stay down after the things Natasha brushed off and walked away from in her own movie.

TASKMASTER with absolute ease against the guy who went unconscious when a bullet cracked his helmet.

Sorry to be that guy

Netflix Marvel series are a lot more grounded. After the apartment fight vs Yelena in Black Widow both Nat and Yelena should have needed medical attention.

Later on Nat falls off a building and smacks a few things on the way down.....and walks away. She should be seriously injured or dead.

If it was Cap or Spidey, who are superhuman or there was at least some attempt to explain. I could live with that . Yet another reason I disliked that film.


Probably the least realistic thing about the Punisher is how long he takes to heal. While bullet wounds, stabbings, beatings and other injuries affect him like a normal person, and even though he needs medical treatment for blood loss etc. he recovers in days rather rather weeks.

Anyways that's why I have a soft spot for the Netflix characters- and because they fight ninjas, I mean come on, you have to be extra awesome to fight ninjas.

 

[Bayne]

Maybe I'm misremembering the Black Widow film - which isn't surprising as I thought it was ****.

Anyway, the way I remember it is that Taskmaster ambushed Nat, hardly a fair fight, and may have had the upper hand in their first confrontation- and not a comprehensive defeat for Nat, either.

Once Nat worked out who she was, it was less about beating TM and more about saving her.

Otherwise I'm struggling to come up with any real fighting feats for Taskmaster that don't really rely on gadgets or her opponent being a moron.

Personal bias may be playing a role here. Also, have we established that Nat is a much better fighter than Daredevil ? The comics would suggest Otherwise in the hand to hand fighting.
I wouldn't have thought there was that much difference- Nat trained by the Black Widow assassin academy, but Matt was trained by Stick, a ninja master.

McU Matt has fought hordes of ninjas and done well with just his fists and a club. Sure Widow fought Chitauri, but with guns, stingers and their own weapons.

Anyway, comcs wise Daredevil beats Taskmaster - in the MCU , based on TM's feats, I can't see her doing much better than 6/10 against him, without having an arsenal of weapons.

Hopefully this won't end in a tie.

You are definitely misremembering the bridge fight. Yes, TM ambushed her but the actual ambush itself had basically no effect on anything other than totaling her car. Everything that happened after that was pretty clearly a fair fight and Nat even had some of her own tech on hand that she used. And despite that, Nat got casually brushed off multiple times and literally sent flying multiple times and her biggest success in that fight was managing to keep TM away from the car for about ten seconds so she could steal the contents of the briefcase and jump off the bridge to get away. She lost that fight very clearly and was very definitively forced to retreat.

Also, you don't get to sweep aside Red Guardian (a supersoldier) as not worthy of consideration and hold up the Netflix version of *the Hand* as impressive adversaries who speak well of DD's abilities. Nobu was a good fight. The generic hand ninjas were pure canon fodder that say absolutely nothing about anyone's abilities.

And MCU Matt rejected Stick's training fairly quickly, and his training period was pretty damn short overall compared to the Red Room program where all the girls started at grade school age or younger and continued training for their entire childhoods.

 

[Batmannerism]

You are definitely misremembering the bridge fight. Yes, TM ambushed her but the actual ambush itself had basically no effect on anything other than totaling her car. Everything that happened after that was pretty clearly a fair fight and Nat even had some of her own tech on hand that she used. And despite that, Nat got casually brushed off multiple times and literally sent flying multiple times and her biggest success in that fight was managing to keep TM away from the car for about ten seconds so she could steal the contents of the briefcase and jump off the bridge to get away. She lost that fight very clearly and was very definitively forced to retreat.

Also, you don't get to sweep aside Red Guardian (a supersoldier) as not worthy of consideration and hold up the Netflix version of *the Hand* as impressive adversaries who speak well of DD's abilities. Nobu was a good fight. The generic hand ninjas were pure canon fodder that say absolutely nothing about anyone's abilities.

And MCU Matt rejected Stick's training fairly quickly, and his training period was pretty damn short overall compared to the Red Room program where all the girls started at grade school age or younger and continued training for their entire childhoods.

View attachment 52097
Been waiting for a chance to use that one.

I feel pretty safe dismissing Red Guardian - a supersoldier he may be but his feats are pathetic.
His biggest contribution was as a distraction - other than in the film's opening sequence.

I'd take generic Hand ninja over Red Guardian any day. The guy was the Chris Farley version of Captain America -if Cap had fought Taskmaster she's in pieces. In fact Red Guardian was so pathetic in the fight against Taskmaster, that she didn't bother to copy his moves for fear of fighting like a moron.

That suit may allow Taskmaster to copy movements , but does it make her super strong, super fast or super tough, nope. ( although in that movie, normal humans like Nat can survive hits and falls that would kill a normal human - if Cap had shown up he'd be bulletproof and throwing cars around).
Also, Taskmaster didn't go through the Red Room programme in the same way that Nat and Yelena did - she was just a normal kid, until Nat blew her up. Due to her injuries, mental health issues and scarring she'd be useless for a lot of the types of missions the Black Widows undertook.

As for the Hand, well genin may be cannon fodder but they're still ninja, which puts them well above most generic goons in my book.

Guess Stick was a much better teacher than the Red Room instructors, not hard to believe - given that their best security measure could be defeated by headbutting a table.
I feel like the writers of that film tried the table headbutt themselves during the writing process, which would explain some of the onscreen nonsense.

 

[Bayne]

View attachment 52097
Been waiting for a chance to use that one.

I feel pretty safe dismissing Red Guardian - a supersoldier he may be but his feats are pathetic.
His biggest contribution was as a distraction - other than in the film's opening sequence.

I'd take generic Hand ninja over Red Guardian any day. The guy was the Chris Farley version of Captain America -if Cap had fought Taskmaster she's in pieces. In fact Red Guardian was so pathetic in the fight against Taskmaster, that she didn't bother to copy his moves for fear of fighting like a moron.

That suit may allow Taskmaster to copy movements , but does it make her super strong, super fast or super tough, nope. ( although in that movie, normal humans like Nat can survive hits and falls that would kill a normal human - if Cap had shown up he'd be bulletproof and throwing cars around).

Regardless of his skill level (yes, it's very poor) he still has super-strength. He planted himself in corridor with the intention of not giving an inch and she blew through him like he was a tissue paper. A regular person ('just a normal girl in padding' is how you described her, I think) could not have done that, period. To so fully neutralize his strength so instantaneously she has to be either highly skilled or a lot stronger than you think she is.

Also, Taskmaster didn't go through the Red Room programme in the same way that Nat and Yelena did - she was just a normal kid, until Nat blew her up. Due to her injuries, mental health issues and scarring she'd be useless for a lot of the types of missions the Black Widows undertook.

No one said she did. You brought up Matt's training to discredit the idea that *Natasha* is a better fighter than him (which matters because Natasha lost to TM). Natasha trained her entire life. Matt had a normal childhood, spent a short time training then ran away with enough time to spare that he was still able to build up an academic record, get into college, get into law school, pass the bar, and gather enough capitol to start his own firm all before his series started.

As for the Hand, well genin may be cannon fodder but they're still ninja, which puts them well above most generic goons in my book.

Generic goons are generic goons, be they Ninja, Alien, Hydra or Tracksuit Maffia.

Guess Stick was a much better teacher than the Red Room instructors, not hard to believe - given that their best security measure could be defeated by headbutting a table.
I feel like the writers of that film tried the table headbutt themselves during the writing process, which would explain some of the onscreen nonsense.

The idea of a pheromone lock really isn't that stupid as Sci-Fi concepts go, and overcoming a mind control implant by physically hurting yourself is a really common story concept in the history of the genre. Plus, the only reason Nat was able to do that was because she knew exactly how the system worked. Every system is vulnerable to someone who knows exactly how it works.

 

[Batmannerism]

Regardless of his skill level (yes, it's very poor) he still has super-strength. He planted himself in corridor with the intention of not giving an inch and she blew through him like he was a tissue paper. A regular person ('just a normal girl in padding' is how you described her, I think) could not have done that, period. To so fully neutralize his strength so instantaneously she has to be either highly skilled or a lot stronger than you think she is.

I'm going with option 3, that the writers are ****ing idiots, and just played Red Guardian for laughs. If they had even a tiny bit of skill they could have had that play out in a way that made sense - e.g. she shoots him.

In comparison the Flag Smashers give Sam and Bucky a hard time - both are highly skilled soldiers and have tech and augmentation- against supersoldiers with minimal training and little or no combat experience.
Somehow Red Guardian is less competent in hand to hand combat than the Flag Smashers ?

No one said she did. You brought up Matt's training to discredit the idea that *Natasha* is a better fighter than him (which matters because Natasha lost to TM). Natasha trained her entire life. Matt had a normal childhood, spent a short time training then ran away with enough time to spare that he was still able to build up an academic record, get into college, get into law school, pass the bar, and gather enough capitol to start his own firm all before his series started.

Okay, that makes sense in the Matt v Natasha stakes. Matt also has superhuman senses that make him better at a bunch of things- Nat doesn't.
Believe it or not you can do other things while attending law school, I did - but yeah, Matt having the time and energy to fight crime as well as run a law firm is a bit unrealistic, although that's what he has Foggy for, and his business often suffers because of his double life.

Generic goons are generic goons, be they Ninja, Alien, Hydra or Tracksuit Maffia.

I disagree. Because what you're telling me the Chitauri are equivalent to Tracksuit mafia.

Generic goons serve similar story purposes,
but they are demonstrably not the same - particularly in a thread like this, where there is no narrative to be served.

Goons have different levels of threat, depending on their own abilities and the abilities of the hero.

The Tracksuit mafia pose very little threat to Hawkeye, even in a confined space, if you replaced them with Ninja( who are much more capable in hand to hand and with melee weapons) or Chitauri ( who are much more physically powerful and have much more powerful weapons) it seems likely that events would play out differently.

Captain America takes out about 10 ( I keep losing count) Hydra agents in an elevator. He does so with a combination of his skills, and super human strength and resilience. However, he certainly has to work hard to win.

Put Daredevil in that situation and he's in serious trouble. He fought a gang of bikers...but 1 or 2 at a time in a hallway/staircase. Cap fights them pretty much all at once.

Similarly, In Dr Strange, Kaecillius' followers are pretty generic but pose a significant threat as one or two of them can make either Strange or Mordo work hard. There's simply no comparison between them and the Tracksuit mafia.

The idea of a pheromone lock really isn't that stupid as Sci-Fi concepts go, and overcoming a mind control implant by physically hurting yourself is a really common story concept in the history of the genre. Plus, the only reason Nat was able to do that was because she knew exactly how the system worked. Every system is vulnerable to someone who knows exactly how it works.

Well, if it worked for you, okay ....me, again, I'm going with option 3, the writers are ****ing idiots. No wonder that movie didn't make a lot of money.

If you think about it in terms of practicality for a few seconds it starts to become less and less useful.

It works on scent. So Nat if moves far enough away so that she can't smell him....and shoots him dead, then it's all good. Not a very secure system. What If she had a cold - because that too can disrupt your sense of smell ?

Why not a visual lock of some kind ? Tough to hurt someone if you can't look at them.

It's true that using pain to overcome mind control is a trope - but it's usually done in a way that makes a little bit of sense.

Apparently trauma to the nose can damage the neurons that carry smell signals, so in theory it's possible.

But as some who had their nose broken by a punch I can tell you that it dramatically reduces combat effectiveness temporarily, for physiological reasons that cannot be mitigated ( e.g. you cannot see properly, you might be the biggest baddass in the world, but it won't prevent that disruption of your vision) . It is possible to keep fighting, Boxers do it all the time, but you're just not as effective.

That's a punch...headbutting a table, hard enough to break your nose so that it severs a nerve... that sounds even more painful ( and probably more concussion inducing).

If you don't believe me, you could give it a try and let us know - I'd be very interested to hear firsthand experience as to how it turns out - although I wouldn't recommend you do this, as Nat would have lost her sense of smell afterwards ( plus the pain, concussion, disfigurement etc. Actually, please DON'T give it try !)

Anyway, I simply can't believe that people got paid to sit around and come up with that idea - and that some sort of supervisory person, who's read more than a coloring book, thought it sounded okay.

Can you imagine being in the writer's room and hearing " So, Nat can't fight Draykov if she can smell him, so she headbutts a table with her nose and breaks it." ****ing genius.

 

[Docker2.0]

Ummmm, uh, hey mate.. HUGE ****ING SPOILER.....

Spoiler

have you not seen No Way Home ? Matt Murdock is in the film as Peter ( Tom Holland) 's lawyer.

That's the MCU bro, if he exists in the same universe as Tom Holland Spidey, who exists in the same universe as Natasha and Taskmaster.

Yeah but that Daredevil is different from the one from Netflix. It's a varient. Look at Kingpin on Disney Plus as compared to Netflix. He is way stronger and appears to be on some kind of super soldier formula.

 

[InCali]

Yeah but that Daredevil is different from the one from Netflix. It's a varient. Look at Kingpin on Disney Plus as compared to Netflix. He is way stronger and appears to be on some kind of super soldier formula.

We don't know that for sure, but you might be right.

 

[Batmannerism]

Yeah but that Daredevil is different from the one from Netflix. It's a varient. Look at Kingpin on Disney Plus as compared to Netflix. He is way stronger and appears to be on some kind of super soldier formula.

Maybe the same supersoldier formula Red Guardian took, because it made him ****ing useless in combat.

 

[Docker2.0]

Maybe the same supersoldier formula Red Guardian took, because it made him ****ing useless in combat.

Kingpin got hit fullspeed by a car and walked it off. Got an arrow to the chest and pluck it out with no blood in sight.

 

[Batmannerism]

Kingpin got hit fullspeed by a car and walked it off. Got an arrow to the chest and pluck it out with no blood in sight.

And then he lost a fight to a 120 lb girl, and displayed less fighting skills than the stay puff marshmallow man.

 

[Bayne]

I'm going with option 3, that the writers are ****ing idiots, and just played Red Guardian for laughs. If they had even a tiny bit of skill they could have had that play out in a way that made sense - e.g. she shoots him.

In comparison the Flag Smashers give Sam and Bucky a hard time - both are highly skilled soldiers and have tech and augmentation- against supersoldiers with minimal training and little or no combat experience.
Somehow Red Guardian is less competent in hand to hand combat than the Flag Smashers ?

The Flag Smashers also outnumbered Sam and Bucky, and we don't actually know how trained they were. It's not a contradiction for one outdated, long out of practice supersoldier who clearly let himself go a lot during his years rotting in prison to be less effective than a group of young, modern supersoldiers in their prime.

In any case, you're not changing your mind and you're definitely not changing mine. And as far as an actual serious attempt at logical debate goes, '****ty writing' is a copout argument that could be made by anyone against any character or scene they don't like. And even if we were trying to find some form of consensus among a lot of people, I'm pretty sure - given how people still look down on them - that the Hand would still be on the ****ty writing list alongside Red Guardian.

Okay, that makes sense in the Matt v Natasha stakes. Matt also has superhuman senses that make him better at a bunch of things- Nat doesn't.
Believe it or not you can do other things while attending law school, I did - but yeah, Matt having the time and energy to fight crime as well as run a law firm is a bit unrealistic, although that's what he has Foggy for, and his business often suffers because of his double life.

It's the story itself that gave me the impression Stick demanded Matt devote his entire life to training, meaning Matt had to start his normal adult life after he quit.

I disagree. Because what you're telling me the Chitauri are equivalent to Tracksuit mafia.

Generic goons serve similar story purposes,
but they are demonstrably not the same - particularly in a thread like this, where there is no narrative to be served.

Goons have different levels of threat, depending on their own abilities and the abilities of the hero.

The Tracksuit mafia pose very little threat to Hawkeye, even in a confined space, if you replaced them with Ninja( who are much more capable in hand to hand and with melee weapons) or Chitauri ( who are much more physically powerful and have much more powerful weapons) it seems likely that events would play out differently.

Captain America takes out about 10 ( I keep losing count) Hydra agents in an elevator. He does so with a combination of his skills, and super human strength and resilience. However, he certainly has to work hard to win.

Put Daredevil in that situation and he's in serious trouble. He fought a gang of bikers...but 1 or 2 at a time in a hallway/staircase. Cap fights them pretty much all at once.

Similarly, In Dr Strange, Kaecillius' followers are pretty generic but pose a significant threat as one or two of them can make either Strange or Mordo work hard. There's simply no comparison between them and the Tracksuit mafia.

But all of them are there to be ripped apart at the speed of the plot.

Yes, you can make some account for them being intended to have more strength or skill or less (though even if you do it's entirely ridiculous to claim that Ninjas are the highest/most dangerous possible form of generic goon in a universe full of high tech, superstrong aliens). But you can also account for the same thing for a character like Red Guardian, who is no more unimpressive than the generic goons and who is also very explicitly supposed to have that superstrength.

You don't get to have it both ways. Either neither of them are worth taking into account because they're fundamentally unimpressive in fact or both of them are for the underlying concepts of the relative strength/skill levels we know they're supposed to have.

Well, if it worked for you, okay ....me, again, I'm going with option 3, the writers are ****ing idiots. No wonder that movie didn't make a lot of money.

If you think about it in terms of practicality for a few seconds it starts to become less and less useful.

It works on scent. So Nat if moves far enough away so that she can't smell him....and shoots him dead, then it's all good. Not a very secure system. What If she had a cold - because that too can disrupt your sense of smell ?

Why not a visual lock of some kind ? Tough to hurt someone if you can't look at them.

Are you seriously claiming you'd be happier with the movie if it was a visual lock? Because I'd bet money on the opposite.

If you're going to assume that a cold can disrupt the pheromone lock (which isn't really a reasonable assumption for a fake sci-fi technology that can't work in reality no matter what), then we also have to assume that a visual lock could be disrupted by:
- eye disease
- a dark room
- a blindfold
- infrared/night vision
- beer goggles
- heavy crying
- Dreykov's face swelling up
- putting a mask or a bag over Dreykov's head
- literally just closing your eyes

And since the red room is supposed to make the best assassins in the world, I'm pretty sure they're capable enough to find and stab a target in the dark. And it would be hilariously absurd to suggest they're unable to point a gun and close their eyes right before they pull the trigger.

It's true that using pain to overcome mind control is a trope - but it's usually done in a way that makes a little bit of sense.

Apparently trauma to the nose can damage the neurons that carry smell signals, so in theory it's possible.

But as some who had their nose broken by a punch I can tell you that it dramatically reduces combat effectiveness temporarily, for physiological reasons that cannot be mitigated ( e.g. you cannot see properly, you might be the biggest baddass in the world, but it won't prevent that disruption of your vision) . It is possible to keep fighting, Boxers do it all the time, but you're just not as effective.

That's a punch...headbutting a table, hard enough to break your nose so that it severs a nerve... that sounds even more painful ( and probably more concussion inducing).

If you don't believe me, you could give it a try and let us know - I'd be very interested to hear firsthand experience as to how it turns out - although I wouldn't recommend you do this, as Nat would have lost her sense of smell afterwards ( plus the pain, concussion, disfigurement etc. Actually, please DON'T give it try !)

Anyway, I simply can't believe that people got paid to sit around and come up with that idea - and that some sort of supervisory person, who's read more than a coloring book, thought it sounded okay.

Can you imagine being in the writer's room and hearing " So, Nat can't fight Draykov if she can smell him, so she headbutts a table with her nose and breaks it." ****ing genius.

Of course it would hurt like hell and make her less effective. That's kind of the point of a heroic sacrifice in fiction.

And I don't think Nat is all that concerned about 'less effective' when the target is a single arrogant old guy in a chair who relied on the false assumption she would be physically unable to hurt him.