Avengers temporarily ate my brain
Or more precisely Cap/Iron Man. Not that I feel any inspiration to write, but it seems to have sucked my brain similarly to the Sherlock attack of a few months ago. Hmmm. There is a common denominator there...
Anyway, yesterday, I went to see Avengers, and as a pre-theater event, I put Iron Man into the DVD player and watched it, pure, straight, and unriffed. (It's a damned funny RiffTrax, though, if you're into that.)
What struck me, which I am sure is no news to anyone who knows anything about Tony Stark, is how all his friends (aside from Pepper and Rhodey) are machines, and how much he trusts those machines. This really hit home for me watching him suit up the first time. He holds out his arms for the gauntlets first. After that, he's at the mercy of the machine. And the machine is holding him up while it puts the suit on him. When it lets him go, he gives a little bump on the floor. The script made the removal of the armor an explicitly sexual joke - "Be gentle. It's my first time." - but I thought putting it on looked awfully intimate.
Of course, he builds all his own stuff, and fan fic suggests that JARVIS's AI is deliberately an extension of Tony's own brain. And of course, there's the -apparantly canon? - techonpathy, where Tony makes himself one with all machines. So is trusting the machines he built just trusting his own genius? Being friends with his own creations just more of his self-absorption? How does that fit in with his canon self-hatred? Machines are good, people are bad? The Iron Man makes him a better person or protects the world from his own failings?
Crossposted at "http://brainofck.dreamwidth.org/323538.html"
Anyway, yesterday, I went to see Avengers, and as a pre-theater event, I put Iron Man into the DVD player and watched it, pure, straight, and unriffed. (It's a damned funny RiffTrax, though, if you're into that.)
What struck me, which I am sure is no news to anyone who knows anything about Tony Stark, is how all his friends (aside from Pepper and Rhodey) are machines, and how much he trusts those machines. This really hit home for me watching him suit up the first time. He holds out his arms for the gauntlets first. After that, he's at the mercy of the machine. And the machine is holding him up while it puts the suit on him. When it lets him go, he gives a little bump on the floor. The script made the removal of the armor an explicitly sexual joke - "Be gentle. It's my first time." - but I thought putting it on looked awfully intimate.
Of course, he builds all his own stuff, and fan fic suggests that JARVIS's AI is deliberately an extension of Tony's own brain. And of course, there's the -apparantly canon? - techonpathy, where Tony makes himself one with all machines. So is trusting the machines he built just trusting his own genius? Being friends with his own creations just more of his self-absorption? How does that fit in with his canon self-hatred? Machines are good, people are bad? The Iron Man makes him a better person or protects the world from his own failings?
Crossposted at "http://brainofck.dreamwidth.org/323538.html"