#daredevil analysis

Everyone talks about the hallway fight. Everyone talks about the collapsed lung. But this, THIS, is the moment that wrecks me every rewatch.

Right after he finishes interrogating the Russian, just before he goes to rescue the kidnapped boy. Matt is already hanging on by a thread. He turns and that tiny, involuntary “ah” slips out of him, and it betrays everything. He’s in severe pain. But when Claire shows concern, his first instinct is to push her away, physically and emotionally. Classic Matt.

Watch his breathing: shallow, careful, like every inhale is a negotiation with God. Watch how he hunches, how his hand hovers near his ribs, how his movements get a little sloppy. Those ribs are shifting. Something sharp is digging into his chest. Every breath probably feels like shattered glass. And he’s still standing there in that stupidly tight black shirt, stubborn and bleeding and unbearably hot about it.

In my experience, characters who take on the voice of reason tend to also be the straight man (in the comedy definition) and also a party pooper towards the more reckless or rowdy characters in a situation.

Similarly, I'm sure we've all had the experience of beloved characters being reduced to comic relief in adaptations of our favorite media and how frustrating the erasure of meaningful character depth can be (don't get me started on Jesper in the SaB show, Kit I love you but the writers did not do you justice).

I've noticed many authors struggle to reconcile charismatic or silly characters with darker moments- I do wonder if this has anything to do with the so-called irony epidemic on the internet right now where everything has to be a joke. It has always bothered me when characters I care about are either never present during serious scenes or act uncharacteristically immature and remain unable to read the room in heavy moments.

Neither of these are a problem when it comes to Foggy because he's treated as a character and not a trope. He is to his core a genuine person who cares about his friends and wants to do the right thing. The fact that he is so easygoing is actually a boon to his career as a lawyer because it disarms his legal opponents and allows him to catch them off guard. He also is great at diffusing tension and de-escalating high-stress situations.

He's likeable and fun, but it never detracts from his determination or the gravity with which he treats his work. He's more responsible and better at communicating than Matt, and he's less impulsive and more cautious than Karen. He's very emotionally intelligent and reads people arguably better than Matt can- listening to all the heartbeats in the world won't measure up to understanding and appealing to a person's inner nature as Foggy demonstrates his ability to do time and time again. He can hit people where it hurts with only his words.

This is not to mention his thorough integrity and refusal to budge on his morals. He advises Karen again and again to not go outside of the law as much as it may help her investigation. He insists on being the bigger person and still finds it in himself to forgive Matt every time he fucks up while also not hiding his feelings of hurt and betrayal. He learns that Matt is going to kill Fisk and despite all the harm Fisk has caused and how much it may benefit society to see him gone, he still reports it to the police because he knows that Matt taking a life will fundamentally change him in a way he can never recover from.

And I am forever grateful that he was spared the fate of being reduced to a walking database of quips that so many MCU characters seem to meet.

I think this gif sums it up nicely:

Silver Age Marvel was really into highlighting the contrast between the civilian identity and the mask/hero. Spider-Man is a broke student who becomes both powerful and responsible. The Hulk is a nerdy scientist who becomes a brute. The Norse god Thor (in his original comic book conception) shares a body with a human who uses a cane to walk. And Daredevil, who takes justice into his own hands at night, is a blind lawyer by day, sworn to uphold the law. All 4 of these heroes change back and forth, meaning they still spend some time in their ordinary, ignominious bodies and circumstances, hiding out and being disregarded by society. (Of course, there are also Silver Age cases where the weak Everyman becomes a powered hero more permanently and irrevocably — Steve Rogers, deemed physically unfit for military service, gets the Captain America serum and transforms; Dr. Stephen Strange, the trained surgeon ruins his his hands and has to learn to rely on mysticism instead of science.)

By the way, it’s easy to notice that many of the “powerless” versions of these heroes have to do with disability in some way. This seems to have been something Stan Lee was interested in. For me, the forced contrast between “weak” and “strong” is kind of ableist and yet also it’s worthwhile social commentary on how we look at people with disabilities, then and now.

The frisson between perceived-helpless blind lawyer Matt Murdock and hypercompetent lawless vigilante Daredevil is fundamental to who the character is. Even though he has had other jobs over the years and been unmasked over and over, retcons and reboots always want to go back to basics with him. (Similarly, sometimes Spider-Man grows up, graduates, makes more money, or gets married, becoming more socially powerful before they undo it all and humble him again.) Daredevil’s story is about power and it’s about right and wrong.

Season 3 of Netflix Daredevil showed us a version of Daredevil who gives up his lawyer vocation. And season 1 of DDBA showed us lawyer Matt who gives up on vigilanteism. But both times, this was treated in the narrative as a loss, something he is mourning, an essential side of his character that has been stripped from him.

DDBA is the first time we have just one side of him (the vigilante side) with no regret expressed by the character or the narrative. He seems content to be living in hiding as a wanted man. He has no ties to his former professional life — Foggy is dead and he doesn’t bother to tell Kirsten where he is. And the season has made his disability a total nonissue, which is strange because even though being blind doesn’t affect Daredevil in all the ways people expect it to, he IS really blind and his ways of getting around in the world are unusual, and there are some things he can’t do.

The show gave up on the idea of contrast right from the beginning of season 2. Daredevil is not blind or a lawyer or even a Catholic anymore. He is just a mask. Maybe some viewers didn’t notice that these fundamentals were missing because of the focus on Mayor Fisk and all the other subplots. In the finale, the show doubles down on jettisoning all that Matt used to be by having him publicly reveal himself to be Daredevil. Now, he is disbarred and CAN’T work as a lawyer anymore and now that he has revealed his powers, he will not be treated by the world with the same kind of ableism he faced before.

I also hope that Karen’s past is revealed in Season 3, but I have a feeling Karen is never going to open up to Matt and tell him herself.

After he lied to her about Daredevil, she’s unsure if he cheated on her (which he practically did), and he’s treated her like an “idiot” this whole time, I really don’t think they’re close enough anymore.

They began as these two innocent people in pure, white love, but as time and the seasons go on we continue to get darker and darker into both of these character’s personalities.

I think Fisk or someone else will reveal her secret and completely destroy her reputation, (i.e. maybe lose her job/everyone will start treating her as an unreliable source), and Matt will be the one there to comfort her.

I hope we get to see Matt apologize, PROFUSELY, and have both of them actually open up to each other for the first time since season 1 episode 13 (the hug).

That one five minute scene of them being real with each other caused so many people to ship them, so I am very anxious to see if the writers will allow them to be honest with each other from now on.

I know it’s very likely we’re never getting the Avocado Family back, but I just really hope we get Karen and Matt’s close friendship back, no romance necessary.

Tumblr won’t let me tag this with DEFENDERS SPOILERS, so don’t read on if you don’t want anything ruined for you!

I was definitely crying for the last 15 minutes. I kept pausing to see how much more time we had, lol. 

I think the Defenders was pretty damn good. My ONE problem was Karen and Foggy trying to help Matt “stop” or whatever.  Karen seemed to be on DD’s side in the diner and then I feel like she did a 180 when she talked to him in his office (because she knew he was lying) and when she spoke with Foggy about “helping” him stop. It just fuels the fire for the haters, and they really didn’t need more lighter fluid (though with Karen, I feel like it is pretty unwarranted.)

Don’t get me wrong, I love them both. But man, I hope they realize they were so much less supportive than all of the other friends of the super-friends. And I highly doubt that is going to happen after thinking he was dead.

The ending really had me. I was 90% positive Matt was going to come out of it (I don’t know how in the hell he did), but I was was also worried they were going to recast Daredevil and make a new series or something (that is the negative anxious part of me who always thinks the worst.)

Pros of the show:

The music - Every piece of music, whether it was score or soundtrack was pretty damn wonderful. I don’t always notice score when I’m watching a show for the first time (especially because action score can be really bad in TV), but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. 

Matt was actually a decent lawyer - I feel like that was my only real wish for this show, and I got it. He’s a good lawyer in the comics, and season 2 had me wondering. 

The fight scenes were amazing. You could tell they put a lot of effort into choreographing them and everyone looked like a badass. 

The rapport between all four of the Defenders was wonderful. I loved how reticent Matt was at first (although the lying, man. That kid has got to get it through that thick bullet-proof skull-piece that it DOESN’T go over well). I loved each of the interactions between the Defenders, I laughed a lot, I smiled a lot. I was begging for them to hug each other!

Elektra was freaking awesome. I teared up a couple times when she was struggling with her humanity and her feelings for Matt (despite the Karedevil lover side of me.) I feel like they did a really good job of bringing them back together and showing their inner turmoil. They’ve always had great chemistry and I loved their scenes together. 

The five fingers of the hand - I thought they were all pretty awesome and I loved seeing the in-fighting. Madame Gao continued to be a badass, and I just stared at Alexandra in every scene she was in.

They even made me like Danny Rand. I don’t know how they did it - maybe it was because he wanted what we all wanted - the super-friends to band together. Or the fact that he got tied up after being an idiot. Or the white privilege comments and jokes at his expense. Either way, he was much less annoying. 

The gasp.

The bloody shirt.

The heavy breathing.

The way his chest rises.

The exhaustion.

The collapse.

The shirtless, bruised, absolutely wrecked body.

Jesus christ, Matt. You’re killing us.

And tell me why he looks flushed at the end of that scene??? Is he having a fever???

Matt knows he’s appealing in a conceptual sense. He can hear it from micro-changes in breath, pulse spikes, voices softening, people standing a little too close. He knows when someone is attracted to him the same way he knows when someone is lying. So yes, he knows he has an effect.

But “pretty” and “hot” are visual currencies, and Matt lost access to that mirror since he was 9.

He doesn’t know how his mouth curves when he smirks.

He doesn’t know how unfair his jawline is.

He doesn’t know how his shirts cling when he’s hurt, or how wrecked and dangerous he looks when he’s bleeding.

And “slutty”? That’s entirely accidental energy to him. He’s just… existing. Breathing. Tilting his head. Touching your wrist for half a second too long because touch is his language.

What he does know is how it feels to move in his body. He knows tension, control, restraint. He knows when he’s close to someone. He knows intimacy without seeing it. Which somehow makes it worse (or better).

So when people look at Matt and think oh my god, he’s over there thinking:

I’m probably a mess. Shirt wrinkled. Bruised. Blood somewhere.

Meanwhile everyone else is thinking:

This man could ruin my life and I’d thank him.

And honestly that gap between what he is and what he thinks he is is part of the appeal.

He doesn’t know how devastating he looks.