Meta: Magneto isn't the good guy! Surprise?

[eldarwannabe]

So, I was really excited to see X-Men: Days of Future Past because I was going to finally be able to go back online and maybe read everything pocky_slash has written and IDK, maybe some fic, but then I realized that I have a MILLION THINGS I WANT TO SAY and I want to get at least some of them straight in my head (and recorded on LJ) before I start reading

Comments

[jossedintime]

I did not know Magneto-justification was a thing. Legit. I spent most of the second half of the movie going, "Wow, Magneto, you are a DICK."

[eldarwannabe]

I have seen a surprising amount of fics that are all "MAGNETO WAS RIGHT EVERYTHING IS THE WORST CHARLES APOLOGIZE NOW SEX."

Which, don't get me wrong, fandom is a great place for dark dystopia, and a great place to sort through some of the complicated questions but I'm not seeing an awful lot of fics/meta/tumblr posts that acknowledge those questions? To be fair, maybe there are more since DoFP but I suspect not. So many people don't even use the word "terrorist" when referring to Erik even though he clearly IS.

I think the biggest problem for me is that most of the fans ignore this stuff so they can just ship Charles/Erik in peace but for me it's the biggest problem standing in the way of me shipping them in any serious way.

(L. and I rewatched the movies and he's pretty consistently dickish. Maybe it's a Bryan Singer thing because I had some irrational hope for him in First Class but it's GONE NOW.)

[jossedintime]

The only time it ever occurred to me to ship them was First Class. Before that, never, and after that I can now say, NOPE.

If a fic is set around First Class, I probably wouldn't have a problem with it, but if it incorporates the events of any other movie, my shipper feels are nonexistent.

[eldarwannabe]

Really? Because there were moments in Days of Future Past where I wasn't sure if I should be upset at the queer-baiting or if it was supposed to be blatant confirmation. Future!Charles and Future!Erik have the Significant Hand Holding and Past!Charles mentions Erik abandoning him roughly every third line.

(Not as bad as the fandom, though, which basically had Charles mourn Erik for epic paragraphs of aaaangst and Raven sometimes gets an acknowledging side note. :/)

[pocky_slash]

Yeeeeaaaaahhhhhh there are def a lot of people who try REALLY hard to defend Erik and his actions. I use the block button pretty liberally on tumblr.

I think part of it is that people seem to feel like he can't be sympathetic AND the bad guy. And that they can't like him without him being good? It's totally okay to like villains! But instead of owning that they're liking a villain, they bend over backwards to instead try and prove that he's not ~*really*~ a villain by whatever means they can manage. It is really, really tiresome, and a lot of times they feel the need to tear Charles down in order to make their point, which bugs the fuck out of me.

(I mean, I 100% recognize that Charles can be a sketchy, arrogant dick. Professor Xavier is a jerk, absolutely, but he's also, you know, not a terrorist

[eldarwannabe]

I mean, I'd like to explore what goes on in Erik's head and he's an interesting character and whatnot but uuuuuugh fandom Erik is a bad guy look at your choices here. Erik is a Bad Guy(Kitty is so right. Charles is the JERKIEST but he is also undeniably on the side of Good. I adore jerk!Charles. ADORE

[laleia]

I have no real opinion either way (Charles & Erik tend to be the least interesting characters in X-Men, to me; I'm more interested in Rogue and Kitty Pryde and the younger kids, which is which I'm not planning on seeing DoFP in theaters even though all the gifs of Fan Bingbing are very tempting) and I haven't seen DoFP yet so I don't know about DoFP-specific fandom opinions going around. But generally on my flist and my dash, I feel like most of the Magneto-apologism is largely rooted in irritation with Charles

[eldarwannabe]

There were some interesting framing scenes in Days of Future Past with the younger and more obscure X-Men that were decent. Kitty was good, but waaaaaay underutilized. (Could have used more Rogue!) But yeah, if that's what you like, there's not much in the film

[90scartoonman]

Voldemort? I thought Erik was the Grindelwald to Xavier's Dumbledore?

Yeah, Erik is an extremist, and that's not going to help anyone unless he leaves the US and starts a mutant colony on an island or in space or something.

I can't defend him, but I like some moments where you're wondering if you'd do any differently. One of my favorite Magneto stories in the comics is where he picks an ordinary human at random just to have a conversation with him about human/mutant relations and when that man does eventually admit he wishes mutants weren't around, well, that's all the reason Magneto needs for sticking to his guns.

[eldarwannabe]

I mean Voldemort's irrational killing and destruction. We are TOLD Grindelwald was evil and destructive, but we never actually know what he did. (Besides some heavy WWII-implications.) But the parallels of Grindelwald/Dumbledore and Charles/Erik are really fascinating fandom-fodder! Weird that I haven't seen it before...

Haha, I don't think they're going to bring up Genosha in the movies although I wouldn't mind. To be fair, though, even that wouldn't necessarily work out so well unless Erik was willing to change his goal from "eradicating all humanity." Because frankly, with a GDP backing him up it would probably be worse.

I'm really, really out of touch with the Magneto of the comic books, so I'm really focusing on the movie fandom here. (Although character-building moments like that are very much the reason I WOULD like to catch up with the comics. But X-Men are the most dauntingI'm not saying Magneto didn't have reasons for his actions, I'm just saying they were 100% insufficient, especially when his actions became less revenge-

[90scartoonman]

You haven't seen that before? I once did a compare/contrast with Xavier and Dumbledore just because here are these prestigious men with multiple names and a thing for phoenixes that shape the minds of young students with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men.

I'd like, for once, to see Magneto try with Genosha and then have to deal with terrorists that want to bring him down or something. It'd be a nice reversal and proves he wouldn't like it if someone used his justifications and extremism against him. If I were to end his story, it would be Asteroid M, that way he can have his own mutant planet or something. Comics are hard to follow, X-Men stuff especially, and all that Xorn business was...kind of nonsense. I sort of lost track of him after that.

[eldarwannabe]

I haven't gone super far into the exploration of this fandom, honestly. Also, it's all fairly recent and being that I'm mostly hanging out in the movie!verse I know I'm missing stuff...(but comics X-Men is still waaaaay intimidating.) That said, ha! That sounds like a great compare/contrast. Would never have thought about the thing for phoenixes.

I think Magneto dealing with terrorists would be amazing. He has the advantage of always claiming underdog/freedom fighter status and I would love to see him deal with such a reversal. I'm honestly surprised it's never been done before.

Ah, I remember when the Xorn stuff was happening! It's probably a good deal why I give X-Comics such a wide berth!