Did you read this story? It's revealed in issue five that the
Banas were working with Hippolyta and the Amazons all along.
Yeah, but I don't think it's made clear whether everything the Bana did was well-known to the Amazons. Hippolyta may have been giving orders or whatnot, but there's no indication that the Amazons were aware of everything that the Bana were doing. Besides, can the Amazons be held responsible for the actions of their leader, and of a different branch of their military force?
BrianWilly said:
It makes no difference who ordered it; if there's an innocent child in front of you and your sword is the one that cut its throat, then you are to blame. You get no sympathy. You get no excuse. Law and order and judgment do not function that way.
No excuse, of course not. But it is PLAUSIBLE. Did you even read the passage of mine that you quoted? It begins with my saying "I'm not excusing them at all." My point on this has been that it is plausible, and not misogynistic in the least, because the American soldiers behaved just as badly.
BrianWilly said:
We're not talking about enemies in the field. We're not talking about terrorist actions. We're not even talking about prisoners of war.
Prisoners of war? The prisoners the American soldiers were guarding were detained for the biological fact of their gender and tenuous associations with the Amazons. Curtailing freedom on a mass level is as evil and dangerous an action as is the murder of civilians. It may not be the same, but it is not to be tolerated, and it is a moral outrage. The American soldiers can be seen no more favorably than can the Amazons.
BrianWilly said:
I have no idea what you're trying to say here.
Clearly, you do.
BrianWilly said:
Please don't tell me you just compared Amazons Attack to the Bible.
No, to Milton's Paradise Lost.
BrianWilly said:
Just because the literary archetypal plotline exists in other stories doesn't mean that it exists here or that, even if it does exist here, that it's accomplished with any skill whatsoever.
The skill of the writing has never been my point. Or hadn't you noticed that I called the mini "sub-mediocre"?
BrianWilly said:
So...the Amazons fall from grace, mirroring falls from grace in other stories. So? It's still stupid and it's still done without any tact to speak of.
Then let that be your argument! But don't attack AA on grounds of implausibility! The corruption of a perfect being is not without precedent in literature!
BrianWilly said:
By your own admission you're stretching the hell out of these points.
I admitted that about one point, the least important one.
BrianWilly said:
What does this have to do with anything at all? People act stupid in real life, so it's okay for them to act stupid in Amazons Attack?
Yeah, that's exactly my point.
BrianWilly said:
Except that you specifically say it doesn't make any of it right, so I don't even understand why you're bringing this up.
It's not morally right. Whether the evil is committed in reality, or in fiction, the perpetrator is committing an act not morally right. But that's no reason to keep it out of a story. If we kept all morally wrong actions out of comic books, there would be no bad guys.
BrianWilly said:
The worst that the American government did here was to round up innocent women suspected of having a connection to the Amazons and incarcerate them in temporary prisons. And then they realized they were being stupid, and then let them go. All this is bad, and unconstitutional, and unwarranted, but guess what? It's several times less atrocious than bombing those women and then slicing their throats.
Sorry, but I don't devalue freedom as you do. Without freedom, life is meaningless. You're one of these people that agreed with Tony in Civil War, aren't you?
BrianWilly said:
Tony Stark was a manipulative *****e before who saw things mechanically and "For the greater good" as if he's running the world like a corporation; now he's a manipulative *****e who saw things mechanically and "For the greater good" as if he's running the world like a corporation.
Also, he's participated in the murder of his friends, he's unleashed dangerous superhumans on the world, and he has fostered circumstances conducive to the assassination of the Marvel U.'s greatest hero.
BrianWilly said:
Explain this, because you're going to have to do a little better than "it's just not." Why is it not misogynistic to turn an entire race of warrior women -- who have been portrayed in nearly the entirety of their existence as wise, compassionate, good, and fair -- into bloodthirsty warmongers who slaughter innocents for absolutely no reason and spout psychotic exposition at every turn.
I can see the decision to do that as possibly having implications in gender politics, and possibly fostering subconscious sexism. But misogyny is the HATRED of women. It is like misanthropy, but for women. That is a conscious thing. I really don't see how this decision can be misogynistic.
BrianWilly said:
That was then. And now? Isn't this just every ranting misogynist's wet dream come true? "HA! I knew it! Those damned feminists pretended to be good and understanding and peaceful, but what they actually want to do all the time is kill men and act crazy because they're WOMEN and all women, especially the feminists, are just crazy senseless manhaters who hate penis and men and want to destroy all our good old-fashioned AMERICAN values."
Perhaps that will be explored in the Wonder Woman title. I would certainly hope so.
BrianWilly said:
BrianWilly said:
the message the Amazons Attack delivered from day one. And it is as offensive and tactless now as it was then.
Again, then: if that's what you feel, let the misogyny and sexism you perceive be your attack. But don't **** around with things like "implausibility" and the way the Amazons were portrayed. You're talking about a much larger-level issue than Amazons burning Kansas and killing kids, or about whether this is consistent with Hippolyta's past portrayals.