#random squeeking

I saw a lot of people criticizing that in 2026 supergirl kara actually kills Krem. I, personally, prefer that. I honestly didn't like the "twist" ending of Woman of Tomorrow because of the way it handled krem.

the supergirl movie breaks what I find to be a very concerning pattern in superhero media. In this pattern, during the final confrontation with the villain, the hero refuses to kill them because they are a Good Person. Usually they say that the villain needs to face justice, and sometimes they even do the viewer the service of defining what that nebulous justice could actually be. In other movies, the hero just pounds the villain into a pulp and then abstains at the last second from killing them completely because that would make them "no better than the villain".

It isn't the aversion to killing that upsets me. I'll defend no killing rules to the death (batmans and aangs for example). What upsets me is the almost universally unacknowledged hypocrisy. Like most action movie heros, Kara isn't made a killer when she stabs Krem. She already is one. Those eye laser beams are hardly operating by dnd rules for nonlethal damage. it's safe to assume that every explosion, every cover fire gunshot, every lase beam blast or superpowered punch into a wall is killing a staggering number of nameless and faceless goons. But when confronted with Krem, the architect and leader, a knowingly cruel and evil man, suddenly the laws shift. Where before Kara was just another fierce action hero moving towards her goal, now she is a murderer. We are expected to take for granted that Krem should be spared, brought to justice, given screen time and moral dilemas all because he has a face and a name to the audience (and more insidiously, status).

I don't see why he should be given any more time and consideration, any more effort and impact, than Kara gives him in the films finale because nowhere in Supergirl, nowhere in the vase expanse of superhero cinema, are any of the less "important" antagonists given a second more thought.

It's not about whether those people are any more or less evil or complicit. It is that to demand of your hero a no killing code is to demand a tremendous amount of effort from them. Every fight must be longer, more complicated and more dangerous. So much time and energy and effort must be spent on alternatives and justice than on fun, flashy action scenes. Your movie must become a nigh-on court procedural, a constant revolving door of deescalation and legal or systematic action (depending on how rehabilitative you're willing to go).

I've been thinking about this scene from Ghost in the Shell for a while now and it's really interesting to me because Batou chooses to cover up Kusanagi with his jacket but not the puppet master. I think it's a really interesting callback to her earlier comment on how her humanity is entirely dependent on the way that she's treated. Without Batou viewing has as a person, she is no more of one than the manikins that look eerily like her in the department store windows, whose nudity doesn't matter because they have no personhood, no value. With Batou's acknowledgement of her personhood comes a certain degree of respect for bodily autonomy, that the manakins and the empty body the puppet master inhabits don't receive.

It actually makes me think about an interesting trend in sci-fi, where robots often feature heavily in a role that could be considered very easily as an allegory for the female experience. They lack bodily autonomy, and despite clear intelligence and free will are still only viewed as worthy of independence at the permission of the social group in power. They're free to be modified, dehumanized, decommissioned and sold without much care at all. And the sci-fi genre is rampant with movies criticizing this and showing the flaws, often with male but sometimes even with female robots. The irony, of course, is that the genre and its primary recipients often fail to grasp this for their female characters, using them mostly for fan service and either not recognizing or not pursuing the parallels.

it's a common problem in fantasy and sci-fi, that its easier to emphasize with an othered group that exists solely in the realm of imagination, free of the real-world associated guilt. Men in sci-fi media can cheer against the dehumanization and second-classing of robots because they won't have to reexamine their own lives or behaviors in the process. the messaging is subtle enough that it can remain examined only at a surface level. The sci-fi genre can continue to tackle themes of classism and othering and lack of autonomy while still providing their audience with the same things they criticize textually. it definitely leaves the question of to what level are creators aware of the double meaning of their themeing and to what degree does human nature just reject the over-application of a moral code to any area where it could require personal inconvenience