#daredevil continued

“Nelson, Murdock & Page”

Karedevil Squad Creators!

We are throwing our first-ever Karedevil Summer Challenge in support of @savedaredevil’s #DaredevilContinued Fanworks event!

We would love it if you helped us celebrate the season by coming together to create some amazing summer-themed works! A busted AC at the office, eating ice cream in Central Park, an afternoon at Coney Island, an evening at the beach, a night under 4th of July fireworks - any random summer tradition you can think of that puts our favorite characters together under the sun or stars!

Rules:

The works must be summer-themed to participate.

No work is too small or too big. Everything is welcome as long as it is complete!

Include your work in our Summer Challenge collection on AO3 no matter the medium! We would love to see gifsets/fics/photosets/art/videos/meta! Create to your heart’s content.

Your work can take place in any season of the show under any genre or rating, but you must follow the fanworks event rules and register to crosspost to their event. 

You are not limited to one creation! The more the better. Just have fun with it!

Please use #KaredevilSummerChallenge, #Karedevil Squad, and @karedevilsquad​ when posting.

“An unexpected reunion will finally get them the date they've always wanted”

(This creative piece was originally published earlier this year in spanish ,now thanks to @bubblesinapocket I have the opportunity to share it with more people in english)

Thank u, next.

Who is it?  It's me.- What are you coming for?  For you.

* (What if) Season 3 of Daredevil being a Pimpinela song.

The third season of Daredevil, a masterpiece of television narration, brings Karedevil back to us as THE ship of the series.

To begin with, we have the fact that Karen refuses to accept the more than logical death of Matt Murdock, even when she is the most logical and cerebral of the characters, the one obsessed with the facts. She does not want to close the chapter in her life, to the point of keeping his apartment as it was. Of course, when the time comes we see her facing the facts.  But it's funny how the meeting between the two does not happen until the middle of the season.

Matt is busy dealing with the aftermath of his savior/martyr complex turned into unbelieving cynicism.

The more his spirit and faith weaken, the closer Matt gets to that dark side (his evil voice represented by Wilson Fisk, obviously). Getting to feel really defeated, something that he had never allowed himself to until then. Not giving up was something that characterized him, but when his spirit breaks down and he internalizes more and more the idea that he should not allow himself to bring anyone closer to his life, that is when he loses the meaning of his struggle. He thinks he will never beat Fisk, and if he does, this can only happen in the most definitive and individualistic way, killing him.

But even when he loses faith in himself, he does not lose faith in his friends. He knows that Foggy would do anything for him, and he knows that Karen would do anything to seek the truth.

So he gets to see Karen, in a scene that could have a Pimpinela song in the background. She confronts him with the hardness of someone who is disappointed. Karen tells the story of the death of a neighbor and it is curious that it works as a metaphor, since their relationship seems to be dead at that point; and because from now on we see it rebuild, in terms of trust and honesty.

And it is rebuilt to the extent that they both recognize that they can not do what they do alone and without help. They regain their bond with Foggy Nelson and both make sacrifices for the good of the other. It's funny how up to a point, Karen refuses to reveal the identity of Daredevil, even if this means losing her job and the trust of one of her best friends. Karen is united to Daredevil out of gratitude and trust, despite what happened later, and she is not capable of betraying that trust.

At the same time, Matt Murdock performs two actions for Karen, which will be the final step to understanding his new personality.  He reveals agent Nadeem that he is Daredevil, in order to gain his trust, because Nadeem did something for him, even unknowingly, saving Karen from Bullseye. The recognition of someone contradictory but who chooses good, of someone who can redeem himself and do something for someone else, despite having made mistakes, somehow reminds Matt that his struggle still makes sense.

But before that we have another key moment, when Matt, in the middle of the perfect opportunity to consummate his revenge and kill Kingpin, decides to rescue Karen.  

We are at the crossroad of the series. Ending evil through evil or overcoming it by protecting others. The selfishness of believing yourself with the power to snatch someone's life versus the act of saving someone, sacrificing what you want to protect who you love. Matt made his decision.

By choosing to save Karen, he found his place again in the fight against evil. And when Karen confesses the truth about her, he understands that, unlike what he thought (and we thought) since the beginning of the series, he is not the only one who has suffered losses and had to make difficult choices to survive. By renouncing to his selfishness and deciding to do good rather than evil, he recovered his purpose. And that was thanks to Karen. At this point he was already disappointed in Father Lantom, who until then was his moral compass, his mother (who had just met, in some way) and was not willing to accept another way out but to become a murderer.

So, up to that point, his transformation and path towards good looks natural only to the extent that we understand the importance of his relationship with Karen, and how she convinces him not to kill Kingpin, not from an abstract thought (like Father Lantom or even Foggy), but from the reality of having taken someone's life and how that would transform him into another person. Did Matt Murdock want to be someone else? In the second season of the series, he thought of (and told Elektra) resigning and abandoning his life. Now Karen was presenting him with the idea from another perspective.  You can kill someone, even justify it, but the price you are going to pay will be to lose your life as you know it.  Karen also pointed to his self-centeredness and self-sufficiency, hidden beneath the idea that he should push others away, as Stick taught him. Stick. She dismantled that theory by simplifying it with the best example, the conscience of the group: Foggy Nelson.

Then we have Karen helping Matt to be himself again, not asking him to be someone else, or even to give up being Daredevil, but accepting him. She helps him, sharing her experience and her most painful and deepest secrets, something that somehow helps Matt realize that he is not alone and that if he has the trust of his friends, Karen and Foggy, he can still fight from a path of light and justice.

Of course, we reach the final crossroads, after everything seems to go wrong using the "legal" plan, where even Karen herself has doubts about whether the right path is worth it; and Matt, not knowing of Nadeem's last sacrifice for the cause, goes on to kill Wilson Fisk, because he sincerely believes that there is no other way out and believes he is willing to pay the price.

But somehow his relationship with Karen also resolves the biggest conflict in the confrontation Matt vs. Kingpin.

Wilson Fisk takes the physical form of his evil side and urges him to kill him, and Matt understands that this would be his enemy's last victory, transforming him into what he despises.

Matt sees in Vanessa, Fisk's wife and the woman he loves, something he knows himself.

Because he knows that if you love someone you are willing to sacrifice yourself for that person. He gave up his first chance to kill Fisk, to save Karen; then he realizes that even without having kindness in his heart, Fisk could love and be loved, because of that love and to protect who he loves, he could be able to reach an agreement with his enemy.

Karen’s relief upon discovering that Fisk is not dead is real, because she knows that Matt had the opportunity to kill him and he did not. Foggy could not say it with certainty, but she did.  That is their relationship.

We arrive to the moment of Father Lantom's funeral, where not only the conversation between Karen and Matt gives us indications that their relationship has been restarted, for good, but (and more importantly), the writers tell us that we are seeing the ship of the series. Matt directly thanks Karen for helping him understand the truth about himself and for trusting him with her secrets. But we also have a non-verbal moment, when Matt is in the pulpit and says that his fears led him away from the people he loves. Who do Foggy and his girlfriend look at?

And finally, we have a kind of reference of the past/hint to the future, when Matt, trying to sound sarcastic, tells Karen that hopefully someday he will forgive her (which could be interpreted in the intentions of Matt of getting back with her, as a couple), Karen's answer is EVERYTHING. With the "Before my funeral, I hope"​ ​ first we have a reference to the loving past of Matt (Matt/Elektra RIP) and a hint that this relationship has a future as long as Matt Murdock is willing to start over, leaving the past behind. And that intention is specified in the final scene, after the creation of Nelson, Murdock & Page.

(This creative piece was originally published earlier this year in spanish ,now thanks to @bubblesinapocket I have the opportunity to share it with more people in english)

Note: While writing this post two things happened:

First, the #SaveDaredevil campaign has taken an interesting direction (with the public support of the stars of the show), something that does nothing but encourage us to continue talking and analyzing this series that is truly genius (believe me, I have taken a lot of time watching it while writing this and it's worth every second).

Second, my post has become longer and longer, so I have divided it into two, because I cannot cut it anymore and I am very interested in leaving the analysis structure by seasons.

I’m leaving the link for the campaign #SAVEDAREDEVIL here and I hope that what I wrote reminds you of why this series is so great and deserves to return.

https://www.change.org/p/netflix-disney-and-marvel-tv-studios-save-daredevi l  

https://www.savedaredevil.com /  

I am used to being alone in my ships, it is as normal for me that nobody likes the couples that I would like to see, as I am used to my favorite series being canceled.  And both have happened with Daredevil.

First, I was fond of Karedevil's perspective, the fact that your unpopular ship has at least a name gives you some encouragement, right? Then I learned that Daredevil will not have a fourth season.

If there was a series that deserved to continue, it was this one, let's say, for the simple fact of having an exceptional third season, it had earned the right to continue telling such a well-developed story.  But raise your hand anyone who understands television.

About Daredevil I have another post prepared, this one I have specifically reserved it for one of my favorite television relationships and lucubrate it.

Action and reaction

What makes any relationship interesting are the parts, before everything. While the character of Matt Murdock/Daredevil is practically an open book for the viewer with his contradictions, imperfections and virtues; I must admit that Karen Page has been one of the characters that has given me the most pleasure to see evolve and get to know.

Because basically the Karen that appears in episode 1 is a damsel in distress. And you start discovering, as the series progresses, that she is everything but that.  Even her defects and obsessions seem well justified after the homonymous episode in the third season.

Surely for many, as I read somewhere out there, it was a "wasted" episode, putting all the weight of the story in Karen’s past, at a moment as relevant as the proximity of the meeting between Daredevil and the Kingpin. But in my opinion, it was that episode the one that gave meaning to the ending. The truth about us never seeing Karen Page in her total dimension as a person, and then noticing just how similar she is to Matt Murdock.

Yes, that is one of the points that we have not had time to analyze enough. Let's first think of the similarities: both of them come from broken homes, orphans, accustomed to being independent from an early age and with a sense of responsibility over others (his father, then the community; and her widowed father and her orphaned brother), and as a consequence of this also the external dependence (in the case of Karen to drugs, in the case of Matt to being Daredevil) that leads them to self-destruction.

Then we can see how these similarities take shape in the stories of each season. In the first season both Matt and Karen base their relationship on Foggy Nelson, because it is someone whom they both admire and want to be (if they could). In the first season they both go for the same objective, but through different paths. And the funny thing is that the path that seems to be the most inoffensive (Karen and Ben Urich’s journalistic investigation) is what leads to one of the defining moments of the character. When Karen kills James Wesley, in addition to contributing in an unsuspected way to bringing Fisk down, she also crosses a bridge that neither Matt Murdock nor Daredevil have crossed, even being in the most critical of the situations. And that gives a new relevance to her character. Karen does not kill for the sake of killing, she did it because she found herself in a need and in a desperate situation. Something inside her, however, haunted her into thinking that she had actually enjoyed it. The fact that that something has the form and voice of Wilson Fisk is revealing, since in the third season Matt Murdock goes through a similar situation of spiritual abandonment, and the only voice in his head is Fisk telling him "what he should do" . Kill.

And killing or not killing is the dilemma of this series. While on one hand Daredevil has his mentor Stick and his girlfriend Elektra wanting him to take that last step towards his transformation as a being of the shadows;  Matt has Father Lanton and, finally Karen, as the defenders of his "light" and the purity that he still barely keeps. The revelation of Karen's path towards the end of Season 3 leaves her as one of the best television characters when it comes to story construction.  We can see details of her in the first and second seasons, details that we will only be able to understand after watching episode 10 of the third season. And it is thanks to this episode that we can know that Karen really understands Matt/Daredevil, without needing to be an accomplished warrior or a vigilante. She has been there, in the dark. She had to make the decision that Daredevil is struggling to make daily, and to suffer its consequences. She is the only one that can convince him to take the right path, to fight to keep being himself.

The new one and the ex

In the second season of the series, Karedevil fans could enjoy the ship in all its glory, only to then getting stamped against the ground and end up with our expectations more massacred than a victim of The Punisher.

We had a slight taste of happiness and light with the beginning of the Karen/Matt romance, but with the same rapidity with which it started, it faded away. And it was to be expected, in any way, after the arrival, to ruin our lives (the same way it did with Matt), of Elektra Natchios. The ex.

Contrary to what one might think, her appearance did nothing more than to reaffirm Karedevil as a valid ship with a future. Yes, Karedevil is the future.  Matt/Elektra is the past. But a past that had not been resolved at all, whose wounds still hurt and whose reason for being (from Elektra turning Daredevil into a murderous machine, from Matt redeeming Elektra) still remained valid.

So it was logical and normal the way we continue with her: we see Elektra, get to know her, like her, hate her, we like her again, we want to be her, we want to kill her.

The relationship between Matt and Elektra, however much their shippers try to convince us, has almost nothing romantic. It is constant self-destruction and dependence. Elektra wants Matt to be like her, to take the path of darkness together; and Matt wants Elektra to redeem herself and return to the light. Of course there is love, but above all there is a mission from each of them to make the other person different from who they already are, and that's what makes the relationship toxic. To be with her, Matt has to give up who he is, and in fact, at the end of the second season he gets to consider it because his life becomes a literal hell.

But let's go back to the beginning of the second season, because here we also see how the characters of Daredevil and Karen are so similar and follow similar paths.  Karen finds in The Punisher/Frank Castle the soul to redeem, the cause to cling to, while Matt/Daredevil has Elektra by his side.

If in the first dynamic there is no romantic component, in the second one it is inevitable to keep it aside. But the Matt who fell in love with Elektra is not the same one, although she is the same (a murderer, duh ). Matt, when he became Daredevil, found his purpose maintaining his values, this doesn’t mean he stopped having a constant internal conflict.  What he wants for Elektra is the same, for her to maintain a certain integrity in her struggle, stop cutting people through, for example. Matt, although hurt by the betrayal, values the love and feelings he has for Elektra and that she has for him, because he knows they are real.

The flashbacks of the relationship are not casual, because they show us what Matt was like before his heart was broken, give us an idea of how he would have liked to be and why Elektra was so special in his life, until then. She was the only person, besides Stick, who did not judge him for who he was. It's funny how one of Stick's lessons is present in the series: "do not cling to people, do not have links". If we match that with what Karen tells him about the consequences

of becoming a murderer "the way you you see yourself changes" , we can deduce that relationships and people are key to take a certain path.  Because it is not only the fact of seeing yourself differently, but of imagining the reaction of those you love. Karen also made it clear to Matt, about why she had not confessed anything about Wesley's death "because you've always seen me as innocent."

For Matt to take another path, for him to renounce to who he is, he also has to renounce to the people around him, or have them walk away from him.  So it's no coincidence, in that telenovela spin, that Stick himself let Karen walk into the apartment to discover Elektra.

Of course, by then, Karen had more important problems in her life than starring in the video for "The new and the ex." Frank Castle had become her new BFF, in what seemed like a competition between Matt and her of Who allows the most dangerous psychopath murderer into their house?

Now seriously, Karen, like Matt, was also obsessed with the idea of saving Castle, she believed that understanding him, validating his feelings and frustration, even justifying to some extent his murders, could make him return to the fold, convince him that he could move on and change. In the same way as in the Matt/Elektra dynamic, this effort is useless. Because nobody should change at the request of another, but by their own conviction.

But in her effort Karen also walked away from Matt, from Foggy (again, the key to the purity of the triumvirate's relationship) and did her part in the end of Nelson & Murdock.

The more Matt moved away from that center, and the more his friends walked away him; he found himself in a darkness that was only familiar to someone: Elektra. Reason for his need to be with her, at the end of Season 2 and even in The Defenders.

The death of Elektra in the second season of the Daredevil serves to remind Matt that there is value in seeking redemption. After all, it was a positive feeling (love) that made Elektra sacrifice herself for him. And he also knew that he had gone too far as Daredevil.

This is where he takes an important step in the dynamics of the series (and the relationship): He confesses Karen that he is Daredevil. He has the courage to tell her, knowing that he may lose her forever, but having been in the worst scenario (the death of Elektra, for which she feels responsible), he chooses honesty.

That confession is probably one of the most undervalued acts of bravery (and love) in the series.  Matt assumed that he had lost Karen, he is mourning Elektra, and Nelson & Murdock is over. He talks to her, with sincerity, because he knows he has nothing to lose if he keeps hiding it, he knows what it is like to be deceived by those you love, he knows that feeling of betrayal and prefers to face Karen and what she can think of him, than keep lying to her because he really loves her, and he wants her in his life.

Of course, it was still necessary to resolve his own relationship as Daredevil, face his biggest faults, fears and challenges.  But we’ll see that in the third season.