Stand Very Far Away From S.H.I.E.L.D.

Well, Jed Whedon said that one time that they couldn’t write a redemption arc for Ward because he didn’t want to be redeemed. No seriously, he said that. Nonjokingly.

I did skim that article, it was mostly good except for some parts that made my eyes roll… something about how no one could have possibly seen before that Ward was redeemable or some bullshit like that. For heaven’s sake. That’s why this whole business still annoys me so: they are starting to realize only now that Ward was set on this path by Garrett (Did most people skip Ragtag?) and that there’s potential for good and evil in all of us (that’s basic psychology), but they still don’t see that a positive influence (in other words, the opposite of how the team treated him in the vault) could have brought him back. And that the good guys failed horribly.

Every so often, I’d check blogs here to see if anything interesting was happening; saw they killed off Ward and Lincoln (I think that was the kid’s name?). Am I to understand that they’ve now brought Brett Dalton back??? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I wish that was enough to make me want to watch again. It’s not.

I don’t think you still watch it, do you? But any of you folks that still watch it? Maybe @wanderingrookie @vesperass-anuna @noprincenorape @afgani @ladytodd @eveningspirit @agent-moonshoes @ezriela ...Can you tell me...for some of us who were bashed to the point of anxiety by the anti’s...is it even worth diving back in again? Are the AOS writers doing something right? Or am I better off remaining an ex-AOS watcher? 

The organization is still made up of xenophobic, racist, white supremacists. Agents of SHIELD made this pretty clear with Daisy(?) reaming Ward out.

Where’s that gif of her telling him he’s a big fat Nazi?

1. Ever buy, own or drive a Volkswagen because it was a Nazi factory

2. Same goes for Porsche

3. And Ford as well, Ford was a big Nazi fan

4. Don’t drink Fanta or Coca Cola

5. Don’t eat any of Nestlé’s products, they too sponsored Nazis, in fact Nazis used Nestlé’s chocolate to lure children into death camps, i read that several times

6. Never wear or own anything by Hugo Boss, because he, among other things, designed SS uniforms, also Hitler’s uniforms

7. Don’t use Kodak products

8. Don’t use Bayer medicines

9. Don’t use anything made by Siemens, they were producing Zyklon (being so knowledgeable about Nazism, you must know what that was, right?)

By your logic, all those companies are still Nazi companies. And, to further your logic , if you use anything made by them , you must be a Nazi sympathizer, right?

10. Please acknowledge that NASA “imported” Werner von Braun, the guy who made V2 rocket, in whose factories about 10 000 people (slave labor basically) have DIED while making those rockets, and also bear in mind how many people in Europe have lost lives because of those rockets. However, USA was fine with it, because von Braun said he renuonces Nazism; in exchange he got USA citizenship, full amnesty of all his crimes and a leading position in USA space program. Which means that USA space program is basically a Nazi product.

Also known as “Operation Paperclip” (through which USA employed a lot of Nazi scientists and engineers). It was real, not made up. If you don’t believe me all those big companies once actively supported Nazis, be my guest and Google it.

AHAHAHAHAHA

Yes, you bet we have lot to celebrate. Pls continue crying. Maybe you shouldn’t have shat all over fellow fans who had legitimate complaints?

Btw i am not a fan of AoS.

It upsets them when someone else is happy about something they’re upset about. Cool story bro! 

First all of you cheer on the fact that Grant Ward/HIve was killed off and that most of us didn’t watch the show anymore.  Only to have the ratings fall in the aftermath and still being blamed for everything only now it’s because most of us aren’t watching the show anymore and enjoying the fact that what we all suspected is actually happening.

The organization is still made up of xenophobic, racist, white supremacists. Agents of SHIELD made this pretty clear with Daisy(?) reaming Ward out.

Where’s that gif of her telling him he’s a big fat Nazi?

1.

Hydra was NOT founded by the Red Skull. Not in the comics and above all, not in the MCU.

2.

Never mind that Hydra was created in 1965, as opponents for Nick Fury and SHIELD (and NOT in the same era as Cap, as many people believe).

The sixties and seventies (aka smack in the middle of the Cold War)  were crazy about spies and spy-organisations, and both Hydra and Nick Fury were Marvel’s attempt to cash in on that.

Heck….Hydra’s logo was created by Jim Steranko.

And  he took this as an opportunity to render hommage to another villainous organisation: SPECTRE (as featured in the James Bond franchise)

So no, this isn’t a ret-con.

3.

Where it comes to Hydra’s ideology: yes, they’re evil fascist genocidal douchebags.

But as an organisation, they are neiter racist nor anti-semitic (Because yes, you can still be evil without being either.)

In the prequel comics to CATFA, the Red Skull EXPLICITLY states that he does NOT follow the Nazi ideology, and that he thinks racism and antisemistim are “racist superstition masquerading as junk science”. 

You will find that the organisation has MANY PoCs in their ranks, often in high and leading positions, something that is pretty much incompatible with a racist white-supremacist ideology. And no, their targets are anybody who will stand in their way (see e.g. CATWS), without regard for race or religion.

(Mind…. comic!Red Skull has Nazi roots (and still very much seems to be an adherent to Nazi ideology), but who

a) was a later addition

b) is only one leader amongst many and who

c) is known to use Hydra for his own goals and purposes, instead of the goals of the organisation. See commentary by Jordan White and what Hydra Cap has to say on the issue and about the Red Skull: “The true Hydra isn’t a collection of marauding thugs, preaching blind hatred and intolerance. It isn’t conquest for conquest’s sake. And it certainly wasn’t built to glorify one man” (Steve Rogers - Captain America #4))

4.

Last but not least, in this case, Daisy / Skye is an unreliable source.

Ideally, a reliable, good source should have access to accurate first hand experience / data and should not be emotionally compromised. Daisy / Skye is miles away from meeting these criteria.

Why?

a. She is emotionally compromised. At this point, what she wants to do is hurt Ward and discredit him, score some points, so she’s flinging the worst insults she can imagine at him. For a lot of people, that insult is “Nazi”. (Hence such things as Godwin’s law.)

b. She doesn’t have first-hand experience or access to first-hand data where it comes to Hydra’s interna, their plans, their ideology and their goals.

The whole point of CATWS and large parts of AoS is that SHIELD doesn’t know about any of this and is desperately trying to figure these out.

You’ll also note how Ward, who, unlike her, DOES have fist-hand experience with Hydra ideology and Hydra interna, pretty much goes “WTF? NO!” and for good reason.

Btw, the same holds true for pretty much every other Hydra agent, e.g. the one on the aircraft carrier Iliad, who listens to the news during the Hydra uprising and is quite exasperated and pretty much rolling his eyes at all that stupid when he hears the newscaster referring to Hydra as Nazi.

The other thing that has me cringing a lot in the Skye/Ward scene is that of all things, she cites the SHIELD handbook. Because ffs….that thing got written while HYDRA was still balls-deep embedded in SHIELD, so it’s very likely they co-wrote the thing as part of their efforts to obfuscate their tracks.

Because hell, as long as you think “Nazi”, a racist ideology that is centered on the belief in the supremacy of a white, aryan race, you’re never ever going to suspect PoCs like e.g. Sunil Bakshi or Jasper Sitwell of belonging to Hydra’s upper management (Similar goes for all the other PoCs we see as part of Hydra’s troops).

Bascially, Marvel has been (and ARE) using Hydra as a stand-in to tell stories and take pot-shots at a wide variety of harmful ideologies.

For example, they have represented Imperialist Japan, Americans arguing against interracial marriage and for “racial purity” in the 70’s, the NSA and US drone-strike policy (which people took note of within fandom, as well as outside of it. ) and right now Nick Spencer is using them to criticize Trump and his hangers-on as well as the recruiting tactics of extremist organizations like ISIS.

All of which are (and were) socio-political developments we most definitely should be having conversations about and where the plot of the Captain America comics serves / served as a conversation starter.

The problem is, the moment you’re insisting that Hydra are nuthin’ but Nazis!, is the moment you’re limiting and ultimately killing those kinds of conversations.

And yeah, on tumblr, HYDRA HAS been repeatedly linked with Nazism for the sole purpose of shutting down discussion of the morality and motives of HYDRA as an organization, and HYDRA characters individually.

And that is a damn shame. Because if you want to fight any kind of harmful ideology, you need to understand it first.

P.S.:

Where it comes to a jewish perspective on this subject….

Brian Michael Bendis, who happens to be jewish and who is also one of the top creators at Marvel, says that Hydra is NOT Nazi.

Stan Lee, who is also jewish, has no problem with Hydra and thinks the Hydra!Cap plot was “a clever idea”.

what about how he took responsibility for his actions?

what about the hypocrisy of the team and Coulson?

what about him knowing that there wasn’t enough good in him?

what about him practically being back on team for real when they were all about rescuing Skye? they had a common goal, and they were united in it.

Imagine instead Shield had locked her up in solitary confinement for six months, without sunlight, without books or other distractions. Without attempts at deprogramming or any kind of therapy in spite of repeated suicide attempts. Without anyone to talk to except her vindictive captors, who would only milk her for information while repeatedly telling her she’s a monster and not worth living… until the day they finally sold her back to her childhood tormentors in return for a favor.

No

You all turned your back on the most abused person among you

And you doing that caused good deal of “terrible things” you have been through

If you had some compassion or at least basic human decency you all would be better off right now

So suffer

And i hope you get to suffer even more

Bullshit.

Stories about people healing, about getting better, about getting a chance to atone for your sins are not a stupid cliche. We want them, because those things - hurt and healing, sins and atonement - are things that happen to us who watch. They’re not just a cliche.

I don’t need a story about someone whom i like and care about constantly losing everyone and everything and being broken anew. That, if anything, is an overused, boring trope. And if you use it in literally every thing you produce, you have a problem.

I have to let this out now and I do apologize if the tone comes off as rude bc that’s not my intent. Also I’m mobile so pls don’t mind any silly errors.

Basically, I’m still mad as hell about the assassination of Ward’s character and the fact that he never got to come back from his abuse and be a better man.

Grant Ward was abused for fifteen years before John Garrett got his hands on him. Fifteen years. As a former abuse victim, I can safely assure you that it takes a long time to come back from that abuse and despite the support system around me, I still struggle with that. Ward is no different. He was abuses by his family. They weren’t this picture perfect family that everyone thought they were. Grant Ward was at military school and literally snapped to the point of going back to his family home and burning it to the ground. We may never know if Ward did or did not know that Christian Ward was inside of the home at the time.

That led Grant to being locked up in juvie where John Garrett came into play. Garrett saw an opportunity and took it. Garrett kidnapped a minor because he knew that Ward was already beaten down. Instead of building Grant back up, he proceeded to continue the cycle of abuse and even brainwashing in Grant’s case. Garrett made Grant dependent on him to an unhealthy level. Garrett constantly drilled it into Grant’s head that he was the only one who cared and that he rescued Grant from hell when in actuality he dragged Grant into a completely different kind of hell. Garrett was Grant’s only human contact for five years; no wonder his people skills were lacking. All Grant had was a dog. After five years, Grant was accepted into the SHIELD Operations Academy as a sleeper agent for HYDRA. After all, Garrett rescued Grant and turned him into the man he was becoming.

Garrett turned Grant into his own personal weapon. He tore Grant down further just to build him back up in his image. Of course when HYDRA came out of the shadows, Grant blew his cover and rushed to Garrett’s aid. Wouldn’t you do that if your mentor - or supposed savior - was dying and you could find a way to reverse that and help him like he helped you? Of course you would. Grant never saw what Garrett did to him as brainwashing because it wasn’t what we were used to with the Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes as my example. Or even Natasha Romanoff who had also been granted a second chance.

Phil Coulson is notorious for digging for answers and giving second chances. Think back to Romanoff, Skye, and Akela Amador as examples. They were all given second chances. Grant Ward wasn’t because Coulson didn’t want to admit to himself that he had a sleeper agent in his team the entire time. Grant Ward did what he thought was best; what he thought would help the only man who gave him a chance.

Yes, Grant Ward was with the team for months. Those months with the team weren’t enough though. Those months with the team weren’t enough to show Grant the way out when he never opened up about Garrett to anyone. The closest Grant got to talking about his past was with Skye but naturally he left out being alone for five years in the woods with just a dog for company (a dog we saw that Grant didn’t shoot despite the inconsistencies the show provided) to Skye because it could help break his cover. So of course Grant didn’t know any better than to not follow John Garrett. Garrett was his salvation. Garrett gave him a chance when no one else would. Garrett helped him become the man he was before Coulson murdered him on Maveth. Coulson and the team drove Grant to becoming the villain because they couldn’t accept that Grant did what he thought was right at the time. We know it was wrong. We know that Garrett continued Grant’s cycle of abuse and tainted his view on SHIELD. Of course Garrett would tell Grant how evil SHIELD was for letting that happen to him.

What if Coulson had gotten to Grant instead of Garrett? What if the team looked past the betrayal to see the broken man Grant was? What if the team actually helped him instead of sending him back to his abuser? What if the team never pushed Grant toward becoming the villain? What if SHIELD never turned their back on Garrett?