The Professor's choice... His mistakes regarding Jean Grey

[Rohann]

It is a dilemma that I faced at the end of the movie...

It is easy to judge Xavier because of his imposing choices on Jean and the devastating after-effects of his doing.

Imagine you are in Xavier's position... You encounter a little girl with the potential to be the most powerful mutant on the planet... You get to see what she can do at such an early age... Levitate cars, read minds, etc. What will she do when she doesnt get what she want? How can she be raised properly without restraint? How can her parents teach her control when she is already capable of manipulating her parent's minds?

As Xavier, you come to the conclusion that you have to take her with you to teach her control and, in the meantime, control her.

But it is in the future development that Xavier screws up. Instead of letting her reach her full potential, teaching her every day to channel her terrible powers and releasing the barriers that held her in check, he went for the easy road: keep her controlled, no development at all... And not only that... comparing what Jean was merely capable of in X1 to what the little Jean accomplished in the first scenes of X3... Jean not only did not advance in her skills, but went way back.

So, due to the terrible ego-function that the Professor imposes on her, Jean develops a second persona, filled with rage against the person that has subdued her. In short, Jean goes bipolar because of Xavier.

Now, we all know what happens next... Jean pushes herself too hard on X2 and thanks to Magneto's machine, her terrible powers begin to surface... faces the terrible trauma of death at the end of X2... resurfaces on X3 only to see that her powers killed her love... And you realise that all of this came from the foolish act of a man that, instead of making her evolve, kept her underdeveloped... Enter demolecularization of Xavier and, ultimately, suicide.

So... is Xavier really that guilty? Does Xavier really deserves death after his foolishness? What would you have done?

 

[Rohann]

One more thing...

The thing is... during the movie, we see the showdown between them (I tell you, I could smell that battle coming ever since X1 when Jean brings him back out of his coma)... But all we get to see is a couple of attempts from Xavier to get into Jean's mind, then her resistante to his interference followed by the royal ass-kicking Phoenix gives to the Professor.

We all know that the Professor wanted to get inside Jean's mind, but to do what? Re-establish the psychic barriers he had built to keep her powers in check?... Like in the comic-counterpart story, it is described as a "vicious" psionic battle in which both engage in a series of psychic-circuit breakers they try to impose on each other... But to do what? To what purpose? On Xavier's side, it was supposedly to control the Phoenix entity...

But we see, in the lab scene, that the Professor acknowledges it might all be too late, since she is strong enough now to block his thoughts... Since he knows this and he knows that the power has already warped Jean... Did he was really trying to rebuild those walls? Or was he really trying to do something else???

Because, we see during the movie that he is rebuilding those barriers... If he was not able to rebuild them during all the time that Jean was unconscious in the lab, did he really think that such a difficult task would be executed when Phoenix was awake and lashing out at him?

Then, I remembered in the comics another famous battle in which Xavier wiped out clean another mind because he felt that nothing else could be done with the owner of that mind... Fatal attractions anyone? Remember how Xavier shut down Magneto's mind?

Well... doing the math... taking into account that X was already thinking that it was too late to help Jean... Wouldn't you consider that the real objective he had in confronting Jean in her house was to shut her mind down/leave her comatose??

If such is granted... then a great amount of the sadness that you feel during that battle diminishes. Because, at first, you suffer because of them both: Xavier trying to help his demented former-student (and acknowledging that it was his previous meddling with her mind that drove Jean to create a split personality) and the demented student, too far beyond help...

More food for thought...

 

[X Knight]

very interesting rohann.

 

[Chris Wallace]

As Compared To Recent Developments/discoveries In The Comics, It's Not Surprising To Me. Between The Danger Room & Vulcan, He's Made A Lot Of Choices Which Were Ethically Questionable, In Pursuit Of The Greater Good, Only To Have Them Come Back & Bite Him In The @$$.

 

[DarknessOfDeath]

my brain hurts from all that information but interesting nonetheless... ow my head.

 

[X Knight]

ummm.....I haven't been following with the comics.....but what did Professer X do to the danger room???

 

[Chris Wallace]

It turned out to be a living entity, which means it was a slave. Xavier knew this & never said anything. So you know about Vulcan?

 

[X Knight]

thanks Chris Wallace.....no, I've never heard about Vulcan.....

 

[RaisingStorm]

I dont think Charles is to blame, or I really dont know, it all depends, if you are talking about the movie, maybe, but I saw you talking about stuff from the comics, and in the comics its way diferent, in the comics they explain about how charles came to discover the Phoenix force within Jean when she was a little girl and she fell in a coma when her little friend died, he had sesions with her and met her in the astral plane and helped her back from the coma, but while they were there, he saw things, he saw how she and Scott had a Bond without they even knowing eachother yet, and he saw the Phoenix force and that Jean wouldnt be able to control it, he saw the chaos it would create, he saw her destiny, cause the phoenix force had chosen her because she is a level omega telepath. In the movie, the Phoneix force is not a separate entity but an alter ego of Jean's so in that case, maybe she could have been trained, but he knew that the minute the phoneix foce overpowers Jean just a little, it will be Havoc, and he didnt want to take that risk, He made a choice for a greater cause. and when you mentioned Charles wiping Erik's mind, it was an act of retaliation because Magneto took the adamantium off of wolverine. you also mentioned Charles saying that it might be too late, but that doesnt mean he is not going to try, if it wasnt for wolverines actions, Jean might have been brought back, like charles told wolverine when they found him knocked down after Jean left the mansion: "I warned you"
when he went to Jean's House to talk to her, he knew the risk he was taking, but he knew that he stood a chance so long he could get in touch with Jean inside of her, just like wolverine did when he asked her what happened to cyclops, and when he killed her, so in Charles mind, wouldnt it have been better to lay her down and try to block the phoenix from making a mess than having wolverine stab her and kill her, he wanted to kip her alive, he coul have killed her if he wanted to, but he wanted her alive... if he wanted to shut her down, he could have done it in the lab, that was never in his mind, he was just trying to get to Jean so he can try and rebuild the blocks again, thats the chance he was willing to take, and a chance that cost him his life, I dont see anything questionable about that, far from that he wanted to help Jean, he wanted to keep her alive, if you are to question a choice..is that one because it cost him his life and at the end of the day, she ended up dead. We have to remeber that Charles is a person like any of us (thats what I love about X Men...they are so human, talking in the way of emotions...etc), he has made mistakes and choices that might have not been the best like when he wiped magneto's mind, the onslaught came to be but how could he know that, he and eric were friends but charles felt he crossed the line when he took wolverine's adamantium off, but at the end of the day is just like Magneto told Pyro "Charles Xavier has done for mutant more than you will ever know, the only regret is that he had to die to see our drem fullfilled" there are things that charles had no control off and he cannot be blamed for that. bottom line he knew the Poenix force was too much for Jean, and it was too big of a risk to let the phoenix force out to "train" Jean to control it, it was like playing with fire. whats so wrong about that?

 

[Chris Wallace]

thanks Chris Wallace.....no, I've never heard about Vulcan.....

Oh-this'll f you up, then. Remember how the original team was trapped on that island, & Xavier formed the second team of Wolverine, Storm, et al.? Turns out they were the third team. There was a second team that he threw together, speed-trained, & sent to the island only to have them end up getting killed. But unbeknownst to Charles, one survived. A kid they called Vulcan, who was actually the 3rd Summers brother. Why do you not know this? Because Charles wiped all memory of this team from the memories of both Scott & Alex.

 

[Chris Wallace]

Oh-and Did I Mention That For Some Odd Reason Vulcan Is None Too Pleased With The X-Men?

 

[X Knight]

wow....thanks Chris Wallace!!!

So, that means Cykes and Havok have a brother!! Did Prof X know he was their brother, too?

Umm....so what are Vulcan's powers??? Is it similar to Scott's and Alex's?

 

[RaisingStorm]

Oh-this'll f you up, then. Remember how the original team was trapped on that island, & Xavier formed the second team of Wolverine, Storm, et al.? Turns out they were the third team. There was a second team that he threw together, speed-trained, & sent to the island only to have them end up getting killed. But unbeknownst to Charles, one survived. A kid they called Vulcan, who was actually the 3rd Summers brother. Why do you not know this? Because Charles wiped all memory of this team from the memories of both Scott & Alex.

When Vulcan confronted Xavier, they explained that Charles cleared their memories of how things happend when they Batled Krakoa for Cyclops, he didnt want Scott to live with the blame he was puting on him because cyclops blamed himself for the dead of Sway, Petra Darwin and Vulcan (he thought vulcan died as well), and thats why he did it, it was not a devious decision, he was just trying to help Scott.

As Far as Vulcan's powers, they are not quite known, all is known is that he has severla kinds of energy manipulation and psionic powers, and he is the only one I know to be said that is beyond Omega level, and he also has the powers of Sway, Petra and Darwin cause they used their power to save him when Krakoa killed them, so their powers stayed in him.

 

[X Knight]

ok....thanks alot.........

 

[X Knight]

ummm...forgive my ignorance again.....I'm not much of a comic reader....

but what does Omega level power stand for??? How would that compare to....say......Level 5 movie Phoenix?????

Also, is there any good site that details all the powers of all the X characters???

I remember back when X1 came out, there was a pretty good "encylopedia-type" site that explained the powers and backgrounds of all the X characters.......but I've forgotten which site that was.....

 

[DarknessOfDeath]

wiki-pedia I think it was...

 

[gap5ewl]

i like this. but something that bugs me is everyone assumes that the machine in x1 caused jean's powers to come forth. That might be the case but i believe it was cerebro that did so. If you guys watched the x1 deleted scene with jean and xavier are in cerebro, Xavier always refuses her to use cerebro saying "your not strong enough" and then she says " I feel my power evolving everyday". What if Professor X was afraid of Jean using cerebro? Why? because he knew it would probally effect the psychic blocks and make her powers out of control and vulnerable. So Jean uses it, is in pain afterwards, and then to top that of Magneto's machine effects her in some way. And now we go to X2 with her powers going crazy and X3 where we see the pheonix.

 

[X Knight]

thanks darkness of death.....

I don't think it was wiki-pedia, though.......If I remember correctly, it was an Xmen specific site......but, I'll check out wiki-pedia.......thanks again.

 

[DarknessOfDeath]

i like this. but something that bugs me is everyone assumes that the machine in x1 caused jean's powers to come forth. That might be the case but i believe it was cerebro that did so. If you guys watched the x1 deleted scene with jean and xavier are in cerebro, Xavier always refuses her to use cerebro saying "your not strong enough" and then she says " I feel my power evolving everyday". What if Professor X was afraid of Jean using cerebro? Why? because he knew it would probally effect the psychic blocks and make her powers out of control and vulnerable. So Jean uses it, is in pain afterwards, and then to top that of Magneto's machine effects her in some way. And now we go to X2 with her powers going crazy and X3 where we see the pheonix.

I love that scene between them and it should have been left in the movie. Seeing it while watching the movie puts a lump in my throat and I get goosebumps knowing what happens between them in x3. I think Cerebo did have something to do with removing the blocks in Jean's mind and magneto's machine removing it competely...hence the scene near the end when she shudders...

 

[ico]

i like this. but something that bugs me is everyone assumes that the machine in x1 caused jean's powers to come forth. That might be the case but i believe it was cerebro that did so. If you guys watched the x1 deleted scene with jean and xavier are in cerebro, Xavier always refuses her to use cerebro saying "your not strong enough" and then she says " I feel my power evolving everyday". What if Professor X was afraid of Jean using cerebro? Why? because he knew it would probally effect the psychic blocks and make her powers out of control and vulnerable. So Jean uses it, is in pain afterwards, and then to top that of Magneto's machine effects her in some way. And now we go to X2 with her powers going crazy and X3 where we see the pheonix.

I think this is probably just because of the 2 different takes on the Phoenix force, one from Singer, one from Ratner, being mashed together and creating a plot hole.

Singer seemed to want to intend that the Phoenix was an evolution in Jeans power, caused by the machine rapidl forcing her powers forward to an extreme, hence her shudder when the machine was shut off. Xaviers mind blocks seemingly didnt exist now, in Singers vision, and so what happened with cerebro was irrelevant. It just really was that jean was too weak to use it.

Ratner on the other hand changed this theory up, and infact Jean has had the power of Phoenix within her the whole time. So this throws the whole theory of Magneto's machine, which simply speeds up molecular growth, out the window. And now, because of this new explanation on her powers, the Cerebro scene can be seen in a new light.

I just think its highly lucky that Singer had that scene with Jean using Cerebro, otherwise we would now have nothing to explain why triggered the Phoenix to come forth.

PS: This is way off topic. Sorry!

 

[X Knight]

hmm......that's an interesting theory........and it's ironic......as Prof X and Magneto were the 2 who visited her at the beginning......to try to help her..

Ironically......it is their technologies, and warring agendas, which help to unleash Jean's darker side.........

 

[Honey Vibe]

If Professor X is so intelligent, he must know that suppressing aspects of oneself doesn't cause them to be dormant -- it causes them to come out in infantile or archaic ways.
Basic Jung, here, Xavier.... ...What he did might have been a temporary band-aid, but it was nothing like a long-term solution.

 

[ico]

True, Honey Vibe.

It might have been a good idea in the beginning when push comes to shove, but to just leave the blocks in and "hope for the best" was really dumb. Prof X shoulda known better.

 

[Chris Wallace]

He could've installed them & then gradually educated her, helped her reconcile the 2 halves.

 

[flavio_lebeau]

does anyone else think that the guy who started this thread might be one of the writters of the movie?
nah, they're too busy to do this...
but its a very interesting point of view...