Brand quotes, DW and TW fic recs

[selenak]

For topical reasons, I decided to collect some of my favourite Agent Brand quotes, with an attempt to explain why I like the woman so much. After all, she, like some other characters I like - Bester from Babylon 5 comes to mind - has a world view I find appalling and is the type of person I'd want far from any position of power were she living in

Comments

[londonkds]

Hmmm. Ellis, depends on which Ellis you get. He might keep her morally ambiguous, but going by how scarily pragmatic some of work can get, he might go in the opposite direction and make her the hero who might be a bastard but f***ing well gets stuff done.

[selenak]

It occurs to me that this type is usually male - and of course in the Marvelverse the obvious precedent is Nick Fury, but Fury has generally more scruples than Brand (though I guess that depends on who writes him).

One thing that occured to me: Brand's job description mean she deals strictly with alien affairs, and Ellis might not want to do another storyline that deals with extraterrestrial elements, so even if she survives, it would be tricky for him to use her?

[londonkds]

Ellis has done female versions of the type - I'm thinking in particular of Jenny Sparks from Stormwatch/The Authority who, among other things, scared off a fascist-alien-ruled parallel Earth from invading her Earth by destroying the whole of their Italy with a tidal wave, which quite clearly killed people who weren't all fascist aliens.

[selenak]

Yes, Joss Whedon invented her (and S.W.O.R.D, which didn't exist pre-AXM, either).

In light of the most recent issue, I wonder if Brand meant that metaphorically or literally.

Me too, though if she knew the super weapon was actually literally a bullet, not a missile, I think she'd have shared (not because she's the information-sharing type in general, but in this case it would have been really important for the stopping it strategy, and she was open to suggestions from the team).

[harmonyangel]

I have to say, I'm not usually very attracted to cutthroat, ends-justify-the-means characters, but Whedon makes Brand work for me. She's just so competent, and sure of herself, and sure of her mission, that I can't help admiring her, despite all the horrible things she's done. And her tension with Hank is a fabulous peek into both of the characters' essential elements. Lovely meta.

[selenak]

It's also that she's completely sincere about regarding her own life as expendable, too - if she were just sacrificing other people, that would make a difference in how I feel about her, I think, and it makes probably the difference between "antagonist" and "villain". When she screws up, she's not blaming someone else (as in the short scene where she says "morons" and her sidekick assumes she means the escaping Danger and Ord, and she says, no, not them, us, we should have figured out earlier etc.)... and of course that she has the good taste of being intrigued by Hank and increasingly shows signs that she cares about what he thinks of her was a masterstroke on Whedon's part. *g

[harmonyangel]

Oh, that's a good point. She's very consistent, which makes her more likable than cutthroat hypocrites.

Hank has been paired with the morally ambiguous before - I'm specifically thinking of the recent Endangered Species, which was all about Hank hanging out with morally ambiguous people doing morally ambiguous things, including Dark Beast, who basically is Hank with no morals. It's always a fascinating (and sometimes painful) thing to watch.