Terrorists and Teachers

[sistermagpie]

Sorry, more X-Men thoughts. People keep having cool things to say about the movie, I can't help it! This is partly related to an exchange in my last entry about how we get more of a sense in the movie why people go with Magneto than we do why people stay with Charles, and also related to some comments I've read where people just don't get why

Comments

[fanaddict]

I loved DS9 for its moral ambiguity and long story arcs. Anyway, the idea for Section 31 was that the Federation is an idealistic government system (that's mostly an oxymoron in RL, sadly) and thus the people in charge would never dream of doing anything shady - right makes might in their mind, and everyone will see their way eventually. Section 31 is the blackest of black ops, more covert than any other program - if you know about it you're either in it or about to die/get mindwiped. The idea is that some Statfleet/military types believe in the Federation's ideals, but not in everyone else's willingness to play by the rules to gradually let those ideals become the norm among Federation enemies. So Section 31 was unofficially created to do the dirty work that kept the Federation and the Federation's ideals when the enemy played dirty.

It's not that the two are always battling each other to a stalemate and that's how they balance each other, it's more like they do both think they're mostly working towards similar goals and feel the need for each other even if they don't always put it in those terms.

Exactly! Even after 50 years, Prof X and Magneto refer to each other as friend, and will drop everything if the other is in danger. If they were truly on opposite sides, I don't think they could justify that level of emotional investment.

Prof X plays people like chess pieces at times. If you want a straightforward hero type, that's Scott Summers/Cyclops. I've... always preferred less straightforward heroes.

By the way, hope it's ok that I friended you.

[sistermagpie]

Oh wow, that's really perfect. I have no problem at all imagining Xavier liking having a group like that. I just read a recap of the movie that pointed out how their philosophies aren't really *that* different, since Xavier will be ruthless when it comes to protecting mutants. It's more like he'd rather do it without bloodshed. Definitely a good analogy, and they totally do seem to value each other almost above everyone else. They wouldn't be able to do that if they really saw each other as against them.

And no problem with the friending--welcome!