KitFxes

Going into Act 2, Shae had found a way to accept that she was one of the fated Lightbringers destined to defeat Ketheric Thorm and lift the shadow curse. Doing so might help them find a cure for the tadpoles and end this cult once and for all.

But the events of the act sour her completely on the idea of destiny and being chosen by the gods. The devastation wrought by Shar, done in the name of the Dead Three, the lack of real intervention by anyone else, the machinations of Raphael and Mizora, the elevation of the ego, fed into people's delusions of their own grandeur., Mystra's willingness to send her ex-lover on a suicide mission. It was too much.

This hit especially hard when compared to the relatively humble desires of the tiefling refugees. Generally, they just want a place of relative safety where they can forge a life. They want family, community, prosperity maybe. They're just trying to stay alive and want no starring role in some fantasy adventure about destiny. In conversation, pretty much no one talks about destiny, save for Rolan kind of, and at each opportunity he forgoes his safety and expected life of fame and fortune for the well-being of others. These are the desires of real people.

All of the high-minded, austere ideas of Shar, the Thorms, even Dame Aylin pale in comparison. When they made it ot the House of Healing and Shae saw Arabella's parents' bodies in those beds, unwilling props in some macabre gothic soap opera, Shae was done with destiny. The trick was not to avoid it, because unfortunately, it couldn't be avoided; everyone is really coppers on their belts to be traded for scraps, so she'd heard. The trick is to never buy into it. They can take your life in an instant, but that doesn't mean you have to believe in them. Just like those tieflings, Shae realized that she did have a destiny, and for once it was more than survival.

I find myself taken by the Eternals because it’s exactly the kind of movie that I wanted: Something like a mix between The Big Chill and a Terrance Malick film with superheroes. I wanted to see a group of characters who’ve known each other too well and for too long and who find themselves adrift in various ways. The film delivered that with aplomb.

What I didn’t expect was that the film would lean into the idea of Eternals as missionaries. Not the kind of missionaries that we see today, but something from a century or two ago. Small groups of fervent followers of some offshoot sect huddled in meeting in small rooms a la something out of The Master, or settling across the frontier spreading the gospel, bound by a common dogma and spiritual zeal. In that environment, the religious group becomes a sort of extended family, with generations, divisions of labor, relationships, and expectations, both of oneself and others. The Eternals present as one of these ‘missionary families’ and I think the movie does a good job of illustrating the sense of loss and disorientation that happens once that religious mission has no meaning.

Ajak is at the top of this family, the spiritual leader who holds the complete faith of her disciples and her directives hold the weight of God itself. Below here are the trusted older members, the devout Ikaris, the resolute Thena, the frustrated intellectual Phastos, and the lighthearted but steadfast Gilgamesh. Next would be the anxious but family-oriented Kingo, followed by the restless ‘teens’ Makkari, Druig, and Sprite who all chafe under the restrictions of their religious life in different ways but are bound by family ties. Finally, there is Sersi who, interestingly enough in this film is presented as the most innocent ‘youngest’ member of the team, with Chan’s performance playing up Sersi’s love of humanity and aversion to making choices as primary aspects of her character (Chan herself described Sersi’s story as a ‘coming of age’ story in interviews).

These dynamics come to ahead at Tenochtitlan where the Eternals' two missions meet an inflection point. The Eternals’ mission is described in two parts–a) killing the Deviants, and b) helping to foster humanity’s development. In Tenochtitlan, the Eternals seemingly kill the last of the Deviants, the Eternals are left with the state of the second mission. Druig calls out the failure of this lesson and in true teenager fashion, rebels against an order that has failed at the part of the mission that he is the most invested in. This in turn prompted Ajak to consider the religious mission concluded and release her children to their own fates. Here, the movie does something truly interesting in that it explores the question of self-identity and relationships outside of a hardcore religious context. All of the personality traits, relationship roles and expectations that the Eternals have ever known have been tightly connected to their faith in Arishem and the mission that he gave them through Ajak. Now that that’s over, who are these people? Who are they to each other? What are they supposed to be doing? Ajak gives the directive to ‘go out and live your lives (I’m paraphrasing)’ but would any of us know what that means if all we had known is one life, one faith, and one mission? The looks on the faces of the rest of the Eternals seems to betray this sense of dislocation and disassociation.

It's astounding that before The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Sam Wilson had appeared in six movies in one way or another. It doesn't really seem like that. Sam's presence has generally been unassuming yet comforting; throwing in a wisecrack or a friendly word f encouragement--often to Steve Rogers-- while generally being of good support in a fight. But outside of The Winter Soldier, there has been little in the way of character exploration, and next to nothing exploring Sam's experiences as a black man in the military.

It's here where Marco Spellman began his writing journey with the character. What he decided to do was what all the best Marvel products tend to do; take the most uncomfortable thing about a story and then make the story about that uncomfortable thing. In this case, I believe Spellman and the creative team realized that previous film making teams had yet to deal with Sam's internal ideas about race or politics as a black military vet and decided to make his struggle to take up the mantle about that.

Of course, the obvious and understandable reason that these aspects of Sam hadn't been explored were because those previous creative teams were overwhelmingly white and wisely decided not to depict something that they couldn't understand (though I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that talented black writers are definitely around in Hollywood., so...). It's also obvious as to why the subject would be central to his taking up the mantle; taking on the symbol of a country that has historically and is currently oppressing people who look like you and share a similar background.

The first uncomfortable bit about this is that Sam has already been a representative of the US as a member of the military. Moreover, Sam's career in the military pre meeting Steve seems pretty much amicable and by the time Winter Soldier came around, he was counseling vets and didn't have much criticism for the military in terms of race or otherwise. It's easy to imagine that someone like this might be actively trying to hide their blackness or code switch, but Anthony Mackie's portrayal is unapologetically black, at least in the way that he carries himself. Mackie gives Sam the kind of 'blue collar black man' vibes that remind me of my dad, a contractor and carpenter. These are the dudes who are used to taking pride in working hard, helping others, taking care of their responsibilities, and 'not getting into political arguments.' Like my dad, Sam is the kind of guy who can get along with a lot of different white people without feeling the need to be inauthentic, a useful skill as a black man in a military world where power is almost certainly dominated by white men who may be likely to be very comfortable being 'colorblind' and who would like to avoid race at every corner. There is, I'd imagine a ton more to unpack there and undoubtedly people closer to that experience who could do so, but those seem to be the basic outlines of who Sam is and how he's navigating a system that is definitely not designed for his benefit (I'd suggest Nicque Marina's excellent YouTube channel for greater insights on Sam's journey from a black vet's perspective!).

To me, this is where Sam's journey is interesting beyond deciding to take up the mantle. Once Sam has decided to become Captain America, he now has to engage with his blackness on a political level. I believe that this is part of his reticence to take up the mantle in the first place, with his exchanges with Isaiah Bradley acting as a prime confrontation with this discomfort. Particularly, Sam's plea for Isaiah to 'help him understand' Isaiah's experiences and refusal to take the shield in Episode 5 ("Truth") is met with Isaiah's very true observation 'that 'You understand, every black does. In this statement, I think Isaiah deftly shatters Sam's comforting self-image as a 'non-political black man' who doesn't really get politics. Sam understands enough, he's probably spent his whole adulthood having few safe spaces to admit it and definitely feeling that it's more advantageous not to say anything, but he definitely understands. He understood at the loan office earlier, he understood when the cops stopped him, he understood when John just assumed he'd be his sidekick. But he knows that to acknowledge it means to take a stance that could make him dangerous to power structures.

By the end, I think he gets halfway there. He's able to identify as Captain America on his own terms and deal with problems in a way that he wants, even if it's not what those in power want, and gets to top it off with a quintessential Sam speech that assumes the solutions to problems as making systems work better, even if they are inherently oppressive.

This is where Sam's second character trait invites further challenge. Sam's way of helping people and making the world better focuses on person-to-person, hands on help. Like his interactions with the boat and in his hometown, Sam likes to take problems as they come and come up with pragmatic solutions. It's not about changing the system, it's about helping people benefit from it, usually through collective community action or direct confrontation of an individual villain. This goes hand in hand with his desire not to look at his blackness from a political standpoint, it gets in the way of his collective, ground-level solution making. I would also imagine that as a trauma counselor, his advocacy takes the form of pragmatic solutions for those in need, and is less about highlighting the lack of government support for veterans as a policy priority more broadly.

I believe that the Black Panther series are really just Coogler's not-so-sneaky way to make engaging geopolitical/family dramas that has an advanced African nation and members of the African diaspora. Pointedly, not depicted as victims or villains, but as fully dimensional, relatable, heroic characters. To me, this is what makes the series my favorite. No one would seriously fund a big budget movie about global politics from this perspective and outside of a superhero franchise, I don't think a lot of people outside of the diaspora would watch it.

Like every geopolitical drama, the main drama is about political changes, and the overarching drama of this series has been Wakanda's changing role in the world from isolated afterthought to advanced world superpower and how Wakanda and the world reacts to that change. Broadly, the world--specifically Western powers are threatened and Wakandans are generally ambivalent outside of T'Challa, Nakia, and Killmonger. I would almost say that on balance, a lot of people in the power structure regret the decision to open up Wakanda to the world, notably Ramonda. However, there isn't a way to put the cat back into the bag (pun intended) and so adjustments must be made. For western powers, the adjustment is to let go of its patronizing view of Wakanda specifically and Africa more broadly. For Wakanda though, the adjustment is accepting their status as a world power and having a clear idea about what they want to do with it.

What kind of Black Panther will Shuri be? This is the one of the many exciting questions that have been rattling around in my head during the many times that I've seen Wakanda Forever. That question then opens up other questions like 'What is the role of the Black Panther in a world where Wakanda is a known, but isolated world power?' 'What does an alliance with Talokan entail?' 'How do Shuri's perspectives and skills change the role?' 'What does it mean for the Black Panther to be disconnected from the role of ruler? (I know, I'm thinking way too much about this!)

Clearly, I'm really excited about Shuri's tenure as Black Panther, especially at a time in the MCU's world that is quickly changing in all facets. She shares her older brother's empathy for others, but where he tended towards the idealistic, Shuri is a practical, pragmatist who couples that with a high degree of empathy for others (well, when she's not traumatized and looking for revenge that is). I think this will translate on how she will protect Wakanda and help others. So where T'Challa opened Wakanda to the world by revealing Wakanda's advances to the UN and immediately opening up outreach center in places of personal import (i.e. Oakland being the first due to it's connection with his cousin), Shuri may have opened up Wakanda more gradually, or to more of a strategic benefit to those who need it the most. Neither of these is wrong per se, they just speak to the differences between the siblings. T'Challa's actions as Black Panther tended towards the morally symbolic, I would expect Shuri's to be more practically focused on concrete help for others or protection.

This is helpful because Wakanda finds itself in the midst of two competing pressures internationally that demand pragmatism among those in leadership. At the end of WF, Wakanda finds itself isolated and specifically targeted by Western powers both militarily and politically in order to access its vibrainum. On the other side, Wakanda finds itself in a hastily created alliance with the militarily superior Talokan, an alliance predicated on protecting the secrecy of said military power and whose leader is anticipating an international incident that will hopefully force Wakanda to call it into a worldwide war.

A Black Panther cannot protect Wakanda from the negative aspects of these circumstances with a physical fight. Rather, navigating these dangerous circumstances requires nuance, practicality, and improvisation. Both Talokan and Western powers want to goad Wakanda into a fight and Shuri most likely knows that won't be a good outcome for anyone.

These factors seem to define the role of the Black Panther as an international representative--something between a symbolic figurehead/foreign minister/head of intelligence role on top of her head of science role (which I imagine she'd have to do some delegating for). The immediate goal is to proactively handle the relationship with world powers through a multitude of means. One of Shuri's strengths is the full breadth of her skills and her readiness to use them interchangeably. In Wakanda Forever, Shuri went from designing equipment in the lab to infiltrating a dorm room, escaping Boston cops, invoking state parley with Namor, exhibiting historical knowledge and statecraft skills not mentioning her knowledge of phonology and desire to help even those who had captured her. I could easily see her using all of those along with the physical powers of the Black Panther and her technological advancements in very effective ways. I would also imagine that she would be buttressed by a team including the Midnight Angles, Nakia, and maybe Ross(?) as kind of a foreign affairs branch depending on how it goes. That could be interesting.

The Chaos Funnel

The last act of Wakanda Forever is chaotic. It didn't really hit me until I kept hearing people question a lot of decisions in the third act, particularly the field of battle. I've seen a lot of reactors point out that meeting the Talokanils in the middle of the ocean definitely puts the Wakandans at a disadvantage. While this is true, I'd also argue that, particularly on short notice, it was the only real way to engage Namor in a fight that didn't include his entire army invading an already devastated Wakanda (but that's for another post).

But the more I thought about it, the more I began to see how the chaos of that battle, the risks taken, the assumptions made, the plans reversed, all have their origin in the emotional chaos that started with Shuri's visit to the Ancestral Plane.

Here she meets Killmonger where she initially expected to meet her mother or maybe her brother, or more honestly, she didn't expect to meet anyone. Taking the heart-shaped herb was never about having an emotional experience after all. As Shuri admitted, it was always about power, and even then, she couldn't really admit what she wanted the power for. In having to admit that she desired revenge, Shuri was also forced to confront the series of strong and often conflicting emotions that accompany grief. In her conversation with Killmonger, Shuri was forced to confront her own feelings of revenge, her difficult feelings about her father's hypocrisy, her mother's selfless sacrifice, and her brother's nobility, her cousin's selfishness. and her anger at how those qualities landed her and Wakanda in the place they're in now. She loved these people and grieves them, but also, has an understandable anger directed towards them.

'It's not supposed to be this way' you can almost hear her say. Shuri doesn't strike me as a person who enjoys having these emotions, someone who's self-concept of herself is that of a helper, a positive, selfless, understanding person who loves her family and country very much. The kind of person who would fight against tyrants like Thanos and save broken white boys who wind up on her operating table.

Grief robs us of such a one-dimensional and rosy self-concept. Grief often involves feelings of anger, of being robbed of a loved one, of both missing someone and hating them at the same time, among other feelings. In the Teen Vogue article on the portrayal of grief in the movie, the columnist Stitch praises the film's open and non-judgmental portrayal of a young black woman's anger in the midst of grief, writing “Seeing Black women allowed to be openly and rightfully angry is so refreshing to me. Shuri's rage and thirst for vengeance in the face of feeling helpless after her brother's death and the murder of her mother was beyond cathartic,” Nia Shumake also highlighted how grief changes your everyday life, highlighting the ways in which each of the four leads attempted to deal with the loss of T'Challa throughout the movie, highlighting Shuri's workaholic tendencies. In my own experience of grief, I've found that the chaos of grief is the most difficult thing to come to grips with. As a person who often prides himself on a high degree of emotional intelligence and a member of the helping profession, I don't like feeling out of control, and I suspect that Shuri--a scientist who values reason and practicality for the greater good--is similarly foxed by such emotions.

It's the chaos of grief that she has been avoiding in her lab, that she's been avoiding in any interaction with her brother's memory or any spiritual journey with it. And it is this emotional chaos that is unavoidable on the Ancestral Plane. Once it is unleashed, Shuri is completely unable to deal with it. From her emotional outburst after taking the herb to her lashing out a M'Baku and into the final battle, Shuri is angry, reckless, selfish, short-sighted, rash. And she should be all of those things! This is a person dealing with unimaginable and chaotic grief. One of my pet peeves with the way that superhero films are sometimes approached is that characters should have the same emotional distance that we do. And so it's easy to say, 'they should have gotten over it,' or 'someone should have made better decisions, or thought more clearly.'

Wakanda Forever eschews that by showing a risky, but not horrible plan formulated under difficult circumstances by what is essentially an absolute monarch. The plan is bad, but no one outside of M'Baku and Nakia would say so, and it's clear that Shuri isn't listening. Thus the chaos extends to the battle where excellent soldiers almost pull off a daring plan, but have no plan B and subsequently find themselves in trouble. A daughter in grief having trapped her quarry in a perfect trap but underestimated how strong that quarry still is. A combatant fighting a more experienced fighter and having to eventually remember her own sense of savvy and strategy to get the upper hand, and finally, the choice between what seems like an emotionally satisfying death strike or a more rational and practical mercy. In this moment, Shuri's understanding of the similarities between herself and Namor, Wakanda and Talokan, followed by a reminder that acting on this information amidst the emotional chaos is the most authentic and cathartic solution saves the day. In a sense, Shuri finds herself within the chaos of grief and acts as she really wants to. This doesn't mean that the chaos has ended, just that she's found some bearings within it.

Princess of Defense

During the Dora Milaje's ambush of the French forces at the Ansongo Outreach Center, Aneka shows off two electrified daggers that were made for her by Shuri. In fact, the Dora Milaje seem to be sporting plenty of new upgrades, electrified spears, shields, etc. All of these presumably made by Shuri. It's only after I've seen that scene a few times that I've really let how aweome that is sink in. Taking the Blip into account, Shuri is still essentially a teenager and at this point, has been at the forefront of Wakanda's military technology for almost two decades.

It's interesting to think about that in contrast to Shuri's title as princess. This has always been the case, but in Wakanda Forever, that title seemed to carry more weight. Shuri is referred to as 'Princess' or "The Princess' a lot in this movie. From a logistical perspective, this makes a lot of sense. It's a shorthand for her title and the characters are not just connected personally, but as professional servants of the government or are related dignitaries to the government. Okoye is a general, M'Baku is essentially a noble and most likely to the rest of the world, Shuri is mostly known by her title, if not her genius. However, the positioning of how people are saying the word seems to be designed to play up the classical idea of a princess; that of a young, vulnerable, kind, and possibly naive young woman. Something along the line of a fairy tale princess. I feel like this starts early with Okoye and Ramonda's discussion about whether Shuri should go on the mission to find Riri. Okoye refers to her as 'the princess' as both women discuss what's best for Shuri essentially without her.

I believe that there's a more subtle version of this going on in Boston, with the police demanding that 'Princess Shuri' essentially surrender to a foreign power as if she has no choice (to be fair, they're asking that of General Okoye as well). There's the striking bit where Griot refers to her as the princess to Okoye while she was unconscious, and then the staging of the scene where she asks Attuma and Namora for parley with Namor seemed staged to highlight a certain powerlessness on her part. When Ramonda dresses down Okoye later, she speaks of Shuri not as a warrior in distress, but as a captured princess, which is a sentiment she repeats when asking Nakia to rescue her (very fairytale princess!)

I think this sets the audience up for Riri's funny comments about the special outfit and calls out the captured damsel trope in other movies. All of which I believe puts us into the mindset of how Namor seems to see her upon their first real meeting. I think that Namor starts with a clear charm offensive on Shuri because all he really knows about her is her title, and probably what he can usually expect from women holding that title. No doubt he probably surmised that she was brave and protective of Riri, but may have also misjudged her as naive and easily swayed. The bracelet, the backstory, the 'Whole New World' tour of Talokan are all a part of that.

However, in the middle of that, Shuri proves surprising. She quickly identifies the timeline of the bracelet, that his mother was human, is eager to see his nation and even seems to have an understanding of vibranium and its properties that he didn't expect. She understands what he has to protect and admires his work in doing so, but isn't willing to let that sway her in her defense of Riri and challenges him to come to a peaceful solution. This, in turn forces him into a different tact and start discussing a larger alliance between the two, something that he wouldn't do with a person with no authority.

It is in this moment that I believe Namor sees Shuri beyond the label of a princess and as an intelligent, clear-eyed, and determined young woman, and we are encouraged to do the same. It's why we're on her side when she wants to save her captors as she's getting rescued. We too know that this means war. From here on out, the idea of Shuri as a helpless fantasy princess is fully replaced with Shuri as a powerful and determined intellect, one who can be extremely dangerous to the world should she give into despair.

And when you think back, this has always been the case. So when Okoye and Ramonda were deciding what was best for Shuri, she piped up to show that she was both listening and had already decided to go; when the police were calling on her to surrender, she was already hatching a plan to escape that freed her from even Okoye; while Namor was putting on a charm offensive, she was gathering information and making a case. In that particular way, it wasn't Shuri that changed, rather it was our and everyone's perception of Shuri that did.

In the ancestral plane, Shuri's conversation with Killmonger is easy to flatten out to 'Shuri confronts her grief and desire for vengeance and, momentarily, chooses vengeance.' But as with any Coogler film, I believe that the dialogue between characters is communicating a bit more than that. Furthermore, I think there's some insight into the reading that the ancestral plane is both a physical plane where you meet the spirits of real people and a conversation with one's own subconscious or conscious (I first heard it on NewRockstars)

I think the scene can be separated into three conversations. The first part of the conversation centers on why Shuri took the herb in the first place. At first, she tries to say that she took it to see her family, but Killmonger calls that out and we as the audience already knows that he's right due to her earlier conversation with Ramonda about T'Challa's spirit. So eventually, she drops that and admits that she wants power and doesn't correct her cousin when he suggests it's for revenge. This essentially is the first time that Shuri outright admits her rage, pain, and desire for revenge unreservedly.

The next phase starts with her denying that she's like him, calling him an unworthy king to which he retorts that he and T'Challa did what was needed to open Wakanda up in such a way that they would have protected Riri in the first place. No argument there, but she goes on to blame his burning of the heart-shaped herb for not only T'Challa's death, but in many ways, the predicament that Wakanda finds itself in, which he denies. I feel like as an internal conversation, this is Shuri reconciling the benefits of having opened up Wakanda to the outside world with the dangers, suggesting that she's been more ambivalent about this issue than she's let on.

In the final piece, the conversation turns to the kinds of rulers that her family members were. Ramonda's bravery, T'Chaka's hypocrisy, T'Challa's nobility, and N'Jadika's ruthlesness. This is, to me, the crux of the matter. Having come to grips with her own desire for revenge and the inevitable precariousness of Wakanda's situation in the world in order to do what's right, Shuri is now confronted with the uncomfortable truth of how she feels about her departed family members. All three of these people (maybe even her cousin in a way) are people that she's mourned in what to her is about a two year period (minus the blip). In the glow of mourning, it's comforting to beatify our departed loved ones; it's a way of insulating us from our own feelings of anger, loss, even betrayal of the death of a loved one. But now, each in turn, Shuri is left to confront the fact that even though she loved her mother, father, and brother, she also knew their various strengths and flaws. This can be a painful revelation to accept, the hardest of all probably that deep down, she really does feel like T'Challa was too noble, or at least too short-sighted with his nobility. Moreover, the guilt of finding common ground with Killmonger, not just about the revenge aspect (for a short time), but more pointedly, in the need for ruthless, pragmatic decision-making is jarring. Though for someone so science-minded, someone always looking for the better solution, someone who is not bound by sentimental attachment to tradition, it does make quite a bit of sense. Killmonger was able to do what he did because he had no attachment to the traditions of Wakanda, hated them even. To him, Wakanda was a means to an end, a way to gain power for both personal and political reasons.