the dark side is neither dark, nor opposite of where you stand
Catching up with an established fandom like X-Men, even with a decent chunk of its canon rewritten by First Class, is exhausting, to the point that I'm so busy reading everyone else's thoughts and fic and looking at art and GIFs and Texts from Xavier Academy that 7 a.m. sneaks up and I collapse into bed with no room for my own thoughts in my head. But sometimes, ideas stick, and they pull together other bits of information, so instead of one giant This Fandom Is Not Only Highly Sexy But Morally Complex post, I'll try to frame issues in the context they came across my desk.
In this fic from the xmen-firstkink meme, Charles wipes Erik's memories of killing Shaw and the events on the beach, and for a while it's good and then of course it all ends terribly. But I wonder - even if Charles weren't preoccupied with his own agony and Raven's betrayal, if he'd had the strength after "dying" vis-a-vis Shaw to do this somehow, would he have?
What is the concept of free will to a man who has the power to take it away as easy as breathing?
He has a moral code regarding his ability - his promise to Raven never to read her mind; his request for permission before delving into Erik's (the second time, in any event); he may have picked a detail out of a woman's mind at a bar but doesn't compel her to do anything1.
Then again, he picks confidential information out of the CIA director's mind and says it to a room of people who may not be privy; freezes an entire corridor of agents to talk to Moira telepathically; compels Oliver Platt's character to get in Moira's car (however flippantly); takes control of a Russian guard's body to spy on Emma Frost, then wipes the memory of another one - oh, and there's the matter of his complicity in Shaw's murder2.
So, where is that boundary, Charles? It's a credit to James McAvoy's acting that I never thought of his telepathy as a weapon (yeah, I know, but his kind eyes and soothing voice and the man radiates serenity). But it is, and it has the potential to be awesomely powerful. Somewhere in the mountain of meta I've waded through in the past couple of weeks, it was mentioned that in all three X-Men movies that Professor Xavier featured, he was incapacitated somehow during the climax - because how do you defend against someone who can not only read your mind but take it over?
As interesting as it was to see Erik pulled toward the "good" side - since they're both ultimately on the side of mutants, just in their own ways - it would've been nice to see Charles pulled the other way, to be tempted by the possibility of remaking the world with Erik instead of waiting for it to accept mutants. Some dialogue cut from their exchange outside the CIA offices when Erik tries to leave ended up in the theatrical trailer. After Charles tells Erik that he has a chance to be part of something much bigger, he says, "A new species is being born. Help me guide it. Shape it. Lead it," and my gut went cold. Maybe making him saintly was the only solution to the audience's willingness to overlook the extent of his power.
PS: If they're saving the corruption of Charles Xavier for the next film, I would get in line for tickets tomorrow.
PPS: Now I want to read fic where his failure to reach Erik makes Charles doubt himself, and his unwillingness to use his power to meddle in the affairs of the world to bring about the future he's working toward with the school and the X-Men3. Maybe contemplate the darker aspects of what he could do, and whether he's capable of it, after seeing a few demonstrations of the lengths Erik will go to achieve his own goal, knowing that one way or another he's going to have to figure out how to keep the Brotherhood in check?
Or would he resist even then, knowing that every time he uses his power to manipulate someone it gets easier to do it the next time, and the next? But what's the point of a moral code to keep your powers in check when the other side can twist a steel bridge into a pretzel or shapeshift into your best friend to stab you in the back?
1 - Yes, there are still complicated consent issues here since she's still being manipulated in that he has information that she didn't give, but I'm talking about actively taking away her ability to say no.
2 - Sure, it was to level the field between Erik and the much stronger Shaw, but it must eat him up inside that the act of saving Erik's life also served to tear them apart. An object lesson about good intentions gone awry, something I imagine he learned over and over again before either hiding his omniscience or enacting his moral code about it.
3 - McAvoy did mention that he played Charles with the egotism that success and boundless power bring, but he's a different man by the end of the film, and it couldn't be all to do with his disability.
In this fic from the xmen-firstkink meme, Charles wipes Erik's memories of killing Shaw and the events on the beach, and for a while it's good and then of course it all ends terribly. But I wonder - even if Charles weren't preoccupied with his own agony and Raven's betrayal, if he'd had the strength after "dying" vis-a-vis Shaw to do this somehow, would he have?
What is the concept of free will to a man who has the power to take it away as easy as breathing?
He has a moral code regarding his ability - his promise to Raven never to read her mind; his request for permission before delving into Erik's (the second time, in any event); he may have picked a detail out of a woman's mind at a bar but doesn't compel her to do anything1.
Then again, he picks confidential information out of the CIA director's mind and says it to a room of people who may not be privy; freezes an entire corridor of agents to talk to Moira telepathically; compels Oliver Platt's character to get in Moira's car (however flippantly); takes control of a Russian guard's body to spy on Emma Frost, then wipes the memory of another one - oh, and there's the matter of his complicity in Shaw's murder2.
So, where is that boundary, Charles? It's a credit to James McAvoy's acting that I never thought of his telepathy as a weapon (yeah, I know, but his kind eyes and soothing voice and the man radiates serenity). But it is, and it has the potential to be awesomely powerful. Somewhere in the mountain of meta I've waded through in the past couple of weeks, it was mentioned that in all three X-Men movies that Professor Xavier featured, he was incapacitated somehow during the climax - because how do you defend against someone who can not only read your mind but take it over?
As interesting as it was to see Erik pulled toward the "good" side - since they're both ultimately on the side of mutants, just in their own ways - it would've been nice to see Charles pulled the other way, to be tempted by the possibility of remaking the world with Erik instead of waiting for it to accept mutants. Some dialogue cut from their exchange outside the CIA offices when Erik tries to leave ended up in the theatrical trailer. After Charles tells Erik that he has a chance to be part of something much bigger, he says, "A new species is being born. Help me guide it. Shape it. Lead it," and my gut went cold. Maybe making him saintly was the only solution to the audience's willingness to overlook the extent of his power.
PS: If they're saving the corruption of Charles Xavier for the next film, I would get in line for tickets tomorrow.
PPS: Now I want to read fic where his failure to reach Erik makes Charles doubt himself, and his unwillingness to use his power to meddle in the affairs of the world to bring about the future he's working toward with the school and the X-Men3. Maybe contemplate the darker aspects of what he could do, and whether he's capable of it, after seeing a few demonstrations of the lengths Erik will go to achieve his own goal, knowing that one way or another he's going to have to figure out how to keep the Brotherhood in check?
Or would he resist even then, knowing that every time he uses his power to manipulate someone it gets easier to do it the next time, and the next? But what's the point of a moral code to keep your powers in check when the other side can twist a steel bridge into a pretzel or shapeshift into your best friend to stab you in the back?
1 - Yes, there are still complicated consent issues here since she's still being manipulated in that he has information that she didn't give, but I'm talking about actively taking away her ability to say no.
2 - Sure, it was to level the field between Erik and the much stronger Shaw, but it must eat him up inside that the act of saving Erik's life also served to tear them apart. An object lesson about good intentions gone awry, something I imagine he learned over and over again before either hiding his omniscience or enacting his moral code about it.
3 - McAvoy did mention that he played Charles with the egotism that success and boundless power bring, but he's a different man by the end of the film, and it couldn't be all to do with his disability.